Gravitational Phantoms: After The Storm
by Dragonsjustice
Summary: Sequel to Gravitational Phantoms. Read that first or be very confused. In the aftermath of Bill Cipher's attack on Gravity Falls, people are picking up the pieces. But there will always be challenges to face, and some people will do anything for a little bit of power. A series of connected one-shots about life after Gravitational Phantoms and off into the future. Now has a pairing!
1. Parental Concern

**Ta-da! Sequel!**

 **This first chapter is mostly just fluff, but as some of you (*cough* DarkKeybladePhantomofTime *cough*) know I will soon start to punch you in the face with colossal amounts of angst.**

 **Unlike Gravitational Phantoms, this sequel is** ** _not_** **already written. I have up to... Chapter Ten, I think, already published, and Chapter Eleven will most likely be up on Wattpad by tomorrow.**

Dipper sighed and looked out of the bus window. The familiar sign passed by-the one that said _"Now Leaving Gravity Falls."_ Next to him, Mabel absently played with a loose thread on the sweater that she was wearing. She gave her brother a hopeful look.

"Do you wanna play bus seat treasure hunt?" Mabel asked, getting ready to lift up the seat.

Dipper was about to say _"no,"_ but then changed his mind. "Okay. What've we got?"

The two twelve year olds _("I'm almost thirteen, Wendy! I can handle myself!")_ were both exhausted, because they had spent quite a bit of their summer helping Wendy and her family (along with the guild of lumberjacks that they worked with) rebuild the town.

Most of the houses and stores had to be completely remade, but some were mercifully spared from the damage that was delivered to the rest of the town.

And once Danny was cleared to be back on his feet, the ghost boy practically cut their workload in half. Of course, it took a quite some time for Wendy to trust his health enough to let the Halfa out of her sight-Dipper and Mabel still wouldn't.

The ghost boy still suffered from frequent panic attacks, as well as nightmares and flashbacks. They were triggered by seemingly innocuous things, like when Wendy delivered a particularly devastating blow to a piece of wood with her ax.

Although, Wendy was pretty scary.

When the _Speedy Beaver_ bus pulled up in Piedmont, Dipper and Mabel were both asleep. The bus driver had to shake them awake.

"Hey, kids. Isn't this your stop?"

"Y... yeah, thanks." Dipper yawned. The two kids grabbed their bags and clambered out of the car.

Almost immediately, they were crushed in a huge hug from their parents. Mabel melted into it easily, while Dipper struggled for oxygen.

"Oh, we're so glad that you're okay!" Their mother gasped. "Why didn't you come home sooner?"

Dipper wormed his way out of what was the basically a choke hold. "We _told_ you, we couldn't leave Gravity Falls. We had to stay and help."

"Yes, but after what happened with my uncle..." their father shook his head sadly. "But we're glad that you made friends."

"Oh yeah, that's right! I sent you guys pictures of Candy and Grenda already, right?" Mabel chirped eagerly. "And of course there's Wendy, Lee and Nate, Thompson, Tambry and Robbie (I got them together with love potion!), Waddles, but he's at the Shack because you guys said that I couldn't keep him, um, the Multibear, I think, Mermando (we kissed!), and kinda Pacifica."

"Forgetting someone?" Dipper prompted.

Mabel beamed. "Oh yeah, of course! I forgot Danny! He's really awesome, you guys gotta meet him."

The twin's parents smiled and exchanged looks. Their mother ruffled Mabel's hair. "Yes, I heard about most of those. Including the love potion. Really, I thought you had outgrown all of that fantasy stuff."

"It's not fantasy, _Mom,_ " Mabel huffed. "It's real!"

Her brother set a warning hand on her shoulder. "Mabel..."

"What? I was expecting you to be the one exploding on them about magic and monsters and all that stuff."

Dipper sighed. "Some battles... just aren't worth fighting anymore."

"So," their father said, setting his hands on their shoulders and squeezed lightly. "Tell me about this "Danny" character."

"Well," Mabel began. "He's got black hair and bright blue eyes. But sometimes he has white hair-"

Dipper coughed to interrupt her. "Sometimes he dyes it."

"Don't listen to Dippingsauce. But he's really nice, and he doesn't have parents anymore, which is really sad. And he's scared of lot's of things, so you have to be careful. But he likes bacon and cereal and anything except for toast, and he loves the sweater that I made for him." Mabel paused for breath, and Dipper took over.

"Danny was abused, sort of. But much, much worse. He still doesn't trust people, except for us, Wendy, Soos, and Ford. He saw Gr-Grunkle S-Stan d-die." Dipper pretended that his voice wasn't shaking. "Danny thinks that it was his fault for not being able to stop it. He tends to think that most things are his fault, actually."

"But he's really brave! He helped to save a lot of people! In fact," Mabel's mouth twitched up as if she were sharing an inside joke as she spoke. "Danny's kinda like a superhero."

Dipper elbowed her lightly in the side. In return, she swatted softly at her brother's ribs. Soon, it dissolved into an all-out slap war, as their parents watched in amusement.

.

.

Danny was curled up in a shady corner of the former Mystery Shack, which was now just a house. _His_ house.

It was far too sunny out for the tastes of a Halfa with an ice core, and Danny tried to cool himself down by forming small frosty crystals on his hands.

A blast of freezing water hit him in the face.

Danny looked up, spluttering. Soos grinned down at him. "Wanna have a water fight?"

The teenager shook his head and curled up again. From nearby, Wendy laughed. "It wasn't really a request, dummy. C'mon, let's have some fun!"

A water balloon splashed down onto his ribs, and Danny relished the cool feeling. Then the ghost boy had an idea, and smirked up at the two. They just challenged the _wrong_ Halfa.

Danny launched a pair of snowballs at them, and then the water war began. Danny started to forget the doubts and worries that constantly pulled at the back of his mind.

Becausethis, _this_ was worth fighting for. This was worth dying for. This was worth _living_ for.

From the window of the house, Ford was watching him. The man looked on as the two teens and the man-child played in front of the fallen trees, momentarily shirking their rebuilding duties.

He looked down at the picture in his hand. A shard of times long past, one that he could live without reminders of. Reaching into his pocket, Ford pulled out a lighter. He set the edge of the photograph on fire, and watched it burn into cinders.

Ford left out the front door, intending to help continue house restoration. A great deal of his lab had been destroyed, so he was working with limited tools.

He was so engaged in his thoughts that he didn't notice when Danny's attention shifted.

He did, however, notice when a snowball hit him in the face.

Ford started, staring at Danny through askew glasses. The ghost boy smiled sheepishly and scuffed the ground. While he was making a conscious effort to stay still, Ford could see that all of the Halfa's instincts were screaming at him to run.

The man crouched down slowly, before scooping up the snow and molding it into the most aerodynamic ball he could. It whacked into the center of Danny's chest, right on target.

The incredulous-but delighted- look that Danny gave him was worth getting hit in the face a million times.


	2. Crystal Eyes

**Kiomori:** Dipper and Mabel will be staying at home for a little while... but not for long. And I'm not saying that Stan _didn't_ become a ghost. I'm not saying that he will, but I'm also not saying that he won't...

 **Danny's gonna have some suicidal thoughts in this chapter, there will be a faint touch of gore and vomit. Also, Danny and Ford bonding is my new favorite thing, okay? Okay.**

 **I still own nothing.**

Danny tossed and turned in his bed, mind plagued with images of bubbling, blistering skin beneath his hands and burning burning _burning._ Something painful clenched in his stomach, and suddenly Danny shot upright and awake with his chest heaving as he fought for breath.

He scrambled down the hall and into the bathroom as fast as he could, before losing the contents of his stomach in the toliet. Danny hiccupped painfully as nausea rolled over him.

The ghost boy curled up in a tight ball on the dirty tile. _It's all my fault,_ he thought miserably. _I'm the one who let Bill into my body. I'm just a freak of nature that doesn't deserve to live._

As that thought occured to him, he got a new idea. Maybe... maybe he could just end it. That would put people out of danger from him. Danny shivered. _I'm hazardous to be around. So it makes sense that I shouldn't be near people._

Danny sat up straight on his knees. He reached up into the cabinet above the sink, then into one of the drawers beneath it; there might be something in there that he could use. As he was rooting through one of them, something shiny and grey-handled fell out of it.

A pair of scissors, probably the same ones that Mabel, Dipper, and Wendy had used to cut his bandages. Danny quickly picked them up and studied them. _Would these work?_

As he held them against his skin, Danny suddenly realized what he was doing. The Halfa dropped the blades with a clattering sound. _I can't,_ he realized. _If I die, I might become a full ghost. And then I might turn into Dan. I can't do that to the world. But... I want to. So badly. Does that make me a bad person?_

Danny started to hyperventilate. _I'm trapped. I can't die, or Dan might happen. I shouldn't live, because I'm a danger to everyone that meets me. I could hurt someone no matter what I do, so I'm stuck in limbo. Oh god, there's no way for me to get out._

Footsteps sounded up to the door of the bathroom. Danny flinched away from them, all of his thoughts going back to _I'm trapped I'm trapped I can't escape please I don't want to hurt people I don't want anyone to hurt me please please no help me._

Then the person walking revealed themselves to the ghost boy.

"Danny? What's going on?" Ford stood in the doorway. He reached out and flicked on the light.

Danny screwed up his eyes and folded up into a ball. The ghost boy felt tears trickling down his face. He let out a small whimper. "Go away."

"Danny, look at me." Ford crouched down and set a hand on Danny's back. The other one reached down and lifted the teenager's chin.

Danny's lip trembled, his eyes filled with moisture. They were flickering from blue to green, the pupils swirling with energy.

Ford crouched down. "What are you doing in here?"

"Nightmare..." Danny murmured. He didn't mention the scissors.

"Then what are these doing out of their drawer?" The man picked up the scissors.

Danny avoided making eye contact as Ford set them back into their spot. His body was trembling.

Ford sat down across from him. "What was the nightmare about?"

Danny hesitated. Seeing the look on the Halfa's face, Ford nodded encouragingly. "It's okay."

"I-I saw S-Stan die again. But it wasn't B-Bill this time. It was _me,_ I was the one who killed him. Because I'm a monster, a freak, a creature that doesn't feel pain or emotions. I don't even deserve to live with what I've done, what I _could_ do." Danny's voice started to take on a monotone quality as he repeated what the agents and his parents had drilled into his head. "I should just do the world a favor and die, because-"

"Danny," Ford interrupted. "Do you really believe all of that?"

The teenager nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again before shrugging. "I-yes. No. I don't know."

"Well, I don't. It was all the fault of that vile creature, and the inhuman monsters that you called parents." He said it with such conviction that Danny almost believed him. But the doubts were still there.

"But it's all my fault that Bill possessed me. I made the deal! _I_ was the one who let myself get manipulated like that!" Danny protested, eyes glowing a bright neon green in anguish. They glimmered with unshed salty tears.

"You're not the only one that Bill has ever tricked into being possessed," Ford said softly.

Catching the implication behind the words, Danny fell silent. They stayed quiet for a little while longer, before Danny did something that shocked both of them to different degrees.

The ghost boy moved away from the wall slightly and instead hesitantly curled up against Ford's side.

The man stiffened in surprise for a moment as his eyes widened, stunned that the ghost boy would do such a thing. Especially after had just had a nightmare. He felt the Halfa tense in fear and anxiety, and forced himself to relax. Danny was still skittish, particularly when he did something that he considered "risky" in terms of trusting or having physical contact with people.

Carefully he shifted his position. Danny tensed, all of the blows, brands, burns, beatings, dissection, and whips coming back into his mind. But Ford was just moving into a slightly more comfortable position. Slowly, Danny started to fall back to sleep.

And this time, it was blissfully free of nightmares.

He didn't remember it in the morning, but Ford put him back in the bed that Wendy had built (in the room that used to house the cursed wax figure exhibit) once the Halfa fell asleep.


	3. Field Trip

**I saw the promo for Dipper and Mabel vs The Future. And I would just like to say that whatever incredible ramifications and feels that it will bring us, it will have no bearing on this sequel or any of the Gravitational Phantoms 'Verse.**

 **Pretty light on the angst this chapter (I don't think that there is any) but after that we will return to our daily doses of feels and angst.**

One of the bad things about being back in Piedmont was the overwhelmingly amount of _stupid people_ that lived there.

Not in terms of their actual intelligence, but more because they refused to believe in the facts about monsters, magic, and things like them even when it was right under their nose.

That included the teacher who was currently trying to acuse them of being "conspiracy theorists" (actually, Dipper kinda was)-just because they had tried to tell him that they had saved the world over the summer.

Which was true.

But, apparently, all of the magic and the _freaking demon_ that tried to destroy Gravity Falls could all be attributed to strange weather patterns and global warming.

Even if it was green and glowing, caused frogs and snakes to rain from the sky (that was a weird day), made hail the size of soccer balls fall all across the United States, was created by something that wanted to take over the world (and the Ghost Zone), and almost _killed_ people.

 _Did_ kill people.

But, of course, it was all just an elaborate hoax, and the death of one Stanford Pines ("No, his name was Stan _ley,"_ the twins corrected) was attributed to a tragic accident in the storm.

Dipper and Mabel already hated this teacher.

And it was only the fifth day.

Dipper smacked his head down on his desk when the teacher, who was named Mr. Matthews, stated that Gravity Falls was a completely normal town with completely normal people.

He immediately lifted it up again when Mr. Matthews said that there was going to be a school-wide material drive to help people in the town rebuild. Then the entire seventh grade class would be driving up there to do some community service next month.

A slow smile spread across his face, and he raised exchanged a delighted look with his sister.

As one of the students passed out the permission slips, the two chattered excitedly about seeing their friends again.

"I bet Waddles will be happy to see me. Oh, I'm gonna have to make Danny a new sweater! Ooh, and Candy. Paz and Grenda already have theirs." Mabel announced happily to Dipper. "I already know what they're going to look like, so I just need to go to the craft store after school. Do you wanna come?"

"Sure. I can't wait to see Wendy and great-uncle Ford again. I have some questions to ask them about the whole "monolith destruction" thing. How do you think it affected the rest of the the world?"

Mabel snorted and poked him. "You sound even more like a nerd than usual, Dippin' Dots."

"Yeah, yeah."

The two poked at each other gleefully, both delighted that they would soon return to their second home.

.

.

Dipper jumped out of the bus. Actually, Mabel pushed him, but that's an irrelevant detail in the grand scheme of things. The twins took a deep breath of Oregon air-much clearer in their opinion than the California climate.

Gravity Falls looked much better than the last time that they had seen it. Most of the buildings had been almost entirely fixed, but some were still partially demolished.

Mabel spotted a small unisquirrel (yes, there were unisquirrels in Gravity Falls) clambering along the branches of a tree, and almost ran after it before she remembered that they still had to wait for the rest of their class.

As the rest of the kids stepped out of the bus, Mr. Matthews shouted for attention.

"Seventh graders! Your guide will be here any minute. I contacted her back in Piedmont, and she says that she's willing to give us a tour as well."

Dipper and Mabel exchanged glances, and the female twin grinned. "Think it's anyone that we know?"

"Yo, Mabelton, Dippingsauce!" The familiar voice called.

Dipper nodded. "I'm gonna go with _yes._ "

The two laughed and threw themselves into Wendy's arms. The redhead beamed as she spun them around.

"I haven't seen you guys in forever!" Wendy said.

"Only a month," Dipper pointed out.

"A month _is_ forever."

"Ah _-hem,"_ Mr. Matthews let out a very fake-sounding cough. "Are you Wendy Corduroy?"

"The one and only," she answered, setting the twins down. She spotted the look on Dipper's face and added, "and no Dipper, that doesn't count."

"Ah, how do you know them?" The teacher frowned at the two thirteen year olds.

Wendy chuckled. "These guys spent the summer with me. Well, kind of."

Mabel tugged on her shoulder. "Wendy, cover for us? We wanna see Danny, Candy, Pacifica, and Grenda."

"Sure thing, Hambone." The older teen pointed in a random direction. "Everybody, follow me!"

As she led the class away, Wendy sent the twins a small smile. "Knock yourself out, Mystery Twins."

The two smiled and took off through the familiar streets. Mabel spotted a face that she knew well and let out a delighted squeal. "Grenda!"

She pounced, and the larger girl gave her a huge hug. Candy poked her head out of her best friends backpack.

"Mabel!" She chirped. "What are you doing here?"

As his twin chatted with her best friends, Dipper looked around for someone. Well, two people.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye caught Dipper's attention. The boy focused on a faint shadow that didn't match anything near it.

"Danny?" He called softly.

The teenager faded into existance, hovering about six inches off of the ground. He looked much healthier than he had when the twins left, and his eyes shone a bit brighter. He was wearing the sweater that Mabel had knit for him, a pair of jeans, and a tattered pair of boots.

The Halfa dropped to the ground with a soft _thump_ and slowly approached Dipper. Danny looked hesitant, like he was afraid that the other boy wouldn't want to talk to him.

The thirteen year old smiled at him. "Hey. How've you been?"

"Good." Danny shifted his weight as he spoke. Then, without warning, he lunged forward and gave Dipper a huge hug. The younger teen melted into it.

After a few moments, Danny pulled back. He had a small smile on his face.

"Do you want to see Mabel? I think she made you a new sweater," Dipper offered.

The ghost boy nodded eagerly, so Dipper led him across the street to where Mabel had migrated when she spotted Pacifica.

Even though they couldn't stay for long, the Pines twins would always love their second home.

Perhaps even more than their actual one.


	4. Witch Bottle

**Kiomori:** I know, right? There will be more bonding, because people with enormous amounts of tragedy in their lives being in surrogate family/mentor-apprentice relationships gives me life.

 **Whoops, look like I lied. Another fluffy chapter.**

The ghosts in Gravity Falls surprised Danny-in a good way.

They were far friendlier than most of the ones in Amity, and they could easily exist with afterlife-sustaining ectoplasm from the Zone.

In fact, most of them were less like ghosts from the Zone, and more like spirits that had "unfinished business" with earth. They had similar powers to most "normal" ghosts, but they tended to keep to themselves.

There was a major difference between ghosts and spirits, one that Ford had explained to him once over cereal. It had become a kind of routine; Danny got a much better education than he would at a normal high school from a normal teacher instead of a literal genius.

It also helped because Ford and Danny kept each other sane.

They both had nightmares (although Ford was much quieter about his than Danny was), whether it was because of that damned portal-or more accurately, what lay on the other side-, or because of the torture, murder, and betrayal.

But because the ghosts of Gravity Falls rarely cared about what the humans that they existed beside did, and because they were so common that his ghost sense went off whenever he stepped outside, Danny wasn't expecting the small concentrated ball of ectoplasm to smack into him.

It exploded along his skin as pain danced through his veins. It sank down through to his core like it was electricity.

Danny's mind went into Panic Mode.

He brought energy to his hands and instantly formed a glowing bubble around himself. The Halfa whipped his head around, searching for the source of the attack so that he could _escape escape get out they're coming._

But instead of the dreaded white coats and ectoguns aimed at his heart, Danny saw a ghost with a very poor fashion sense hoving before him with his chest puffed out in pride.

"I, Technus, master of technology, shall take over the world using the wonderful tech in this building!"

Oh. Okay. This... This was better. This Danny could deal with.

He kept the shield up for another second before dropping it and sending a spar of ice towards the enemy ghost. Technus tried to dodge, but the frigid blade spun in the air and coiled around him.

It formed a frosty cage around the insane ghost, one inforced with ectoplasm. Technus wouldn't be able to go intangible and escape from this one.

He was still ranting, but Danny ignored him through months of long practice fighting to protect the town. He had a rather pressing matter on his mind.

Before, he would have just sucked Technus into the thermos and been done with it. But now, he didn't have the thermos, or a portal to the Zone. Danny knew that one day he would be strong enough to create portals at whim, but it would be a long time before that happened.

The ghost boy remembered what the twins had done to the Box Ghost. Maybe he could find another one of those bottles that they used? Hadn't Mabel once said that they were called Witch Bottles? Ford might know where they were.

Danny looked at Technus. He would only have to run quickly into the house to ask. But while Technus was easy enough to beat, he could still cause his own fair share of chaos.

Danny took a deep breath and shouted, "Ford? Could you bring me a Witch Bottle?"

For a moment, there was silence. Then the genius walked out of the house with a book in one hand and a Witch Bottle in the other. He tossed the bottle to Danny, nose still in his book as he turned around and walked back inside.

Danny flipped the bottle in his hands. The Halfa pointed the opening at his enemy, and watched as Technus was sucked in. The smaller version of the other ghost pounded his fists on the glass walls as Danny corked the Witch Bottle with a satisfied look on his face.

Mabel had sucked him in there once, and it hadn't actually been too bad.

At least, not compared to what he and already been through.

Fading back into intangiblity, Danny swooped down to the basement. Ford was already down there, still reading about physics or something from the same thick book as before. The ghost boy held up the container.

"Where should I empty this?" He asked quietly. He knew from experience that you shouldn't interrupt someone while they were reading if you didn't want to face dire consequences.

Not looking up, Ford pointed to a cabinet with a hole in it. "Stick the neck and opening of the bottle in there once you've removed the stopper. Whatever's in there should be sucked back into the Ghost Zone. "

Danny nodded (even though Ford couldn't see it) and did as he said. Technus let out one final scream that sounded like "Curse you!" before he disappeared.

The Halfa studied the bottle for a moment before pocketing it. He never really knew what he would run in to, and it never hurt to have a way to contain ghosts on you at all times.

He flew back out through the roof, making sure that he stayed invisible. Danny had been on his way to meet Wendy for some late-afternoon pancakes at Greasy's (which was somehow the first thing other than the former Mystery Shack to be up and running), and he didn't want to be any later than he already was.

Of course, by the time that he arrived, Wendy had already demolished her pancakes. But the redheaded lumberjack still forced him to eat as much food as he could, and not just because she personally knew that Ford was about as competent in the kitchen as a blind vulture.

And, according to Wendy, at least vultures could eat bad food that would normally kill a human.

Danny laughed at that statement. Softly, but it was still a genuine laugh.

Wendy grinned to herself. _Mission accomplished. Now to get him a girlfriend._


	5. Spooky Scary Skeletons

**Kiomori:** No, not really. But he's been in the portal for quite some time, and he's more used to taking care of himself than of another person.

 **dragonscreator:** *accepts your mountain* Thank you

 **DimondDoggie:** I don't really have a girlfriend lined up for him in the near future, but Mabel and Wendy are both in his side.

 **Another mostly fluffy chapter. The next one is gonna hit you guys with angst, though. Hopefully.**

"It's almost Halloween!" Mabel sang as she spun around the kitchen in a whirlwind of yellow and blue yarn.

Dipper chuckled as he watched her. "Yeah, but there's still a few more weeks to go. You do know that, right?"

"So? We still need costumes, and candy pillowcases, and pictures of whatever Candy and Grenda are wearing this year," Mabel giggled.

Her brother sighed and rolled his eyes. Dipper took a sip of his coffee-he had developed somewhat of a taste for it after he turned thirteen. Mabel still hated it, and it was probably for the best anyway. She was hyper enough normally and the last thing that they needed was to heighten that fact with caffeine.

"I thought that you already _had_ costumes picked out for us?"

"Well," Mabel said with a shrug. "I did. But then I realized that there were so many other possibilities that we could use, so I started to think about those ones instead. So I ended up not _actually_ making the costumes."

"Of course you didn't," Dipper muttered affectionately. Louder, he added, "So what did you decide on after all?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," Mabel smirked.

Dipper huffed wryly. "I can't wait."

.

.

Mabel beamed as she carried the homemade outfits out of her closet. The original design had been gotten off of the internet, but the modifications were all her own.

They just needed a few more touches...

"Mom, I'm heading to the store!" She called, bouncing out of the house. The fabric (as well as craft, clothing, etcetera), store was right near their home, so not much walking was needed.

When she arrived, she was greeted by a fake skeleton in the face. But instead of screaming in terror, Mabel let out a battle cry.

"HIII-YAH!" The teenager kicked the skeleton's face in before immediately apologizing to the person holding it. "Oh my gosh, Jeremy! I'm so sorry! Are you okay? See, this is why you don't scare people when they just want to get crafts for their costumes."

Jeremy, a store employee who knew Mabel reasonably well, winced and gingerly touched his slightly bloody nose.

"Yeah," he said thickly. "I fink Iw'll bwe okway in a bwit."

"Oh, good. You're sure? Because if you are, can you tell me where the new stuff is?"

After Jeremy waved her in the direction of their newest stock, Mabel left him to clean up his blood from the floor.

The brunette girl skipped down the isles, sticking her head briefly down each one. Once or twice, she stopped to get stuff like yarn or more sticks for her hot glue gun (no, not sticks. Dipper was always saying that they weren't sticks, even if they looked like them. They were just not-melty glue).

That is, until she saw something that made her stop in her tracks.

Mabel was frozen. Was that... What she thought it was?

Carefully backing up so that she could confirm with her mind what her eyes were telling her, Mabel stared at it.

She picked up the object and turned it over in her hands almost reverently. It even _felt_ the same, if a bit less well-worn.

In an instant, Mabel was paying and out the door. She knew that she should have been sprinting home to show Dipper, but something told her not to. Maybe it was the faint flickering in the corner of her eye, but Mabel felt as if she were being watched. But not in a particularly bad way. Just... A strange one.

Like whatever (or _who_ ever) was watching her wasn't evil.

So Mabel made her special modifications and fixed up the costumes. She showed her brother her findings, and pretended that there weren't a few traitorous tears leaking from her eyes and trickling down her face.

And she acted like she couldn't see her brothers, too.

.

.

Danny sighed as he ignored the doorbell for the eight _millionth_ time.

He didn't even know why Wendy had bothered getting candy. They were just going to eat it all anyways (Ford could pretend all that he wanted-Danny knew that he and Wendy weren't the only reasons that it was disappearing so fast, especially the chocolate).

Really, the fact that their light was on was no reason to keep knocking. Couldn't the stupid kids accept that one of the reasons that they were even out in the middle of nowhere in the first place was because they didn't want to be disturbed?

As the bell chimed again, Danny finally stood up and turned invisible. He swooped over the porch and landed behind the two who kept knocking, dropping his invisibility and crossing his arms.

"Who are you?"

They turned, and Danny realized that they couldn't have been much older than ten or eleven. One of them huffed.

"We just want some revenge. It's none of your business, anyways."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "It is when I live here."

The shorter boy, who was dressed as a skeleton, scoffed. "Yeah, right. The only one who lives here is that old guy. He scared us on Summerween; now it's payback time."

Danny blinked slowly. _Summerween? What the heck is that supposed to be? Halloween in the summertime?_

"Well, you're mistaken." Danny took a step forward. He wasn't going to be afraid of these boys until they actually touched him. "I do live here, and if you try anything I'll skin you alive."

The Halfa tried to sound confident and threatening, the same way that Wendy did. It must have worked, because the two paled, looked at each other, and then ran off into the trees. Danny hoped that they knew about the monsters.

He didn't notice the ax-wielding figure behind him, outlined against the light of the moon.

"Boo!" Someone shouted from behind him.

Danny yelped and spun around. "Wendy! Don't _do_ that!"

She grinned at him. "I just wanted to stop by. Robbie and Tambry are being all lovie-dovie, Lee and Nate are gross as usual, and I don't even wanna know what Thompson's doing. Plus-" she pulled something up on her phone. "The twins sent me this great picture of their costumes."

The redhead pulled it up for Danny to see.

Dipper and Mabel were dressed up as Mulder and Scully from the X-Files, but they looked as if they had been bitten by zombies. Remembering the time that Mabel told him about Dipper summoning a bunch of reanimated corpses, he wouldn't find it to unbelievable.

And if Danny thought that anything was odd about Scully wearing a red fez with a peculiar golden shape on it, he didn't say a word.


	6. The Cipher File

**Who's ready for some angst! I know I am! Do we need trigger warnings for panic attacks? I don't** ** _think_** **so, but if we do than yeah, we're gonna need one.**

 **Hahahahahahahaha who wants some pain!**

Danny was wandering aimlessly around the house. He was mostly just looking for something to do-while the cold didn't really bother him that much (it actually gave him an invigorated feeling), it was _boring_ being snowed in.

Yes, snowed in. Some god or deity had decided that Oregon should be blessed with some rare snow. And now it was literally everywhere, and incredibly deep too.

The Halfa didn't expect to end up in front of the vending machine.

Eh. Maybe there was something down there that he could mess around with without destroying the universe.

Probably not, through.

He tapped in the code and watched the door slide open. Danny walked down the stairs that led to the elevator-and stopped. The ghost boy had never been to the second level before. He hadn't even noticed it before.

Danny tapped the button and let himself get taken down to the middle floor. It was less dusty than he had expected it to be, like Ford had just been there. Even though he spent more time on the bottom level, but even then it was still always grimy.

There was a large mirror with a sheet covering it lay against the wall, and a red gun type thing with what looked like a lightbulb on the end was half-hidden by a book.

At the end of the room was a series of screens, all labeled "Project Mentem" or something like that. Danny couldn't really tell.

Behind it, the walls were covered in large white pieces of cloth. Weird.

Danny tentatively lifted up the edge of the sheet that covered the mirror, and stared back at his reflection.

Or was it?

The movements and angles didn't seem quite right, like someone had taken a picture and then enlarged it to his size. His reflection's eyes had a peculiar gleam to them, and Danny quickly threw the cloth back over it.

The Halfa would rather not think about it too hard.

He backed away from the mirror and turned. Danny's eye landed on a half-open drawer, and he reached inside.

Danny picked up a manila folder, one emblazoned in red across the front in words that read "Cipher File."

The teenager flinched back, almost dropping the notes. But he kept his grip on them. He... he wanted to read it.

Danny flicked open the cover and turned the pages that lay inside, looking at crude prehistoric drawings of a triangular creature with one eye and a snappy fashion sense.

He stared in fascination at one particular drawing.

On one side was a skull, labeled "Our World." In the middle was the outline of a screaming person and Bill's smaller form, called "the Mindscape." Danny shuddered. At the end of the page was a large image of the dream demon that read "the Nightmare Realm."

So... that had been what Bill meant when he said that he was going to fuse the two dimensions. Would all of the other creatures that inhabited the demon's home world cross over too? And were they just as sick and twisted as Bill was- _had been?_

 ** _ **("Come out, come out, where ever you are!")**_**

Danny shivered, his muscles involuntarily convulsing. The paper creased beneath his steadily tightening grip, and he could feel his eyes glowing radioactive green. He squeezed them shut and dropped the page to the floor.

He suddenly found it impossible to breathe, and his body was suddenly trapped and immobile beneath the former Shack. Danny backed up, gasping for breath.

And ran right into the back of one of the sheets that covered the wall behind the screens.

With a swirl of papers, they all fell and revealed what was behind them.

 _ ** **("One down, three to go.")****_

As the ring of eyes stared down at him, Danny's legs gave out beneath him, and he lay on the floor. He was curled up into a tiny ball, chest heaving.

 _(Can't can't can't do anything no please don't hurt them please please please.)_

Someone set their hands gently on his shoulders and upper back, and the ghost boy automatically flinched away.

"It's alright, Danny. Just breathe. It's okay, you're okay. Bi- _he_ is gone. Just breathe. In and out, in and out. There you go."

 _(No no no I can't move please help he's coming freak freak no good monster you don't deserve to live.)_

They were talking to him, and Danny struggled to follow their instructions.

"Breathe. Just breathe. It'll be alright. Nothing can get to you, you're safe here. Just breath."

 _(I can't.)_

"It's okay. You'll be okay. Just keep going. You can do it."

Slowly, the air returned to Danny's lungs. He blinked up at the person above him, connecting their identity through bits and pieces.

Glasses. Gloves. Trench coat. Red sweater thing. The hands on his shoulders.

Ford.

Danny jerked back. The Halfa pointed to the pictures of Bill Cipher that lined the wall, unable to actually look at them.

"W-why?" He whispered.

Ford sat down across from him.

"It's not what you think," he said quietly.

Danny let out a small hysterical giggle as neon green bled into his bright blue irises. "Than what is it? You just happen to have a shrine to one of your enemies in your house and forgot?"

"No." Ford shook his head and took a deep breath. "I... I thought he was my friend, once. I _trusted_ him."

He spat out the word _trust_ like it was tainted. Maybe it was.

"He could... move in and out of my mind as he pleased. I didn't even notice what he had done to me until after I was betrayed. Planted ideas there, sadistic impulses that were hard to ignore at first. He's the one who designed the portal in the first place. I thought it was to create knowledge." Ford spoke bitterly. "I was a fool."

The man studied his six-fingered hands. "The things he made me do..." He shuddered."I thought that it was for the purpose of science, knowledge, progress. Not because of someone thought that hurting people and melding together two things that should never mix would be _funny."_

Danny bit his lip. The ghost boy understood that, what it felt like to have someone root through your thoughts and control you. _Freakshow, Bill, his parents, the agents._

But... not like that. Not for his life's work, not for his sanity. At least, he didn't think so.

The sanity aspect was still up for debate.

"It wasn't," Ford whispered, running a hand through his hair. "It wasn't funny."


	7. Red Stone (Part One)

**The Keeper of Worlds:** Good to see you again! And, well, I do exist on pain.

 **Kiomori:** Haha, yep! I love me some angst. Also a good old fashioned twist ending.

 **unique is cool:** Hmm. I'll keep it in mind, damn, that is adorable. I might not use it in this particular fic, but that ship is now on my to-do list! Hopefully I can write it without procrastinating for about a million years.

 **Gideon's plans are pretty out of date, because he's been in prison and has no idea of all of the crazy stuff that went down. But he** ** _does_** **know that Stan is dead because of prisoner talk.**

 **Now, who wants more evil?**

Gideon Charles Gleeful was not a patient child. He had had everything that he could have wanted from the day that he was born, and his father was constantly telling him how special he was. And he was powerful to boot-finding that journal in the forest had lead to a wealth of knowledge and power. Even when his amulet was broken, he still held influence over the masses.

So he wasted no time in breaking out of prison.

The inmates were so easy to manipulate, it was almost funny. And, of course, there was his stolen page from the second journal.

The possession spell could only be used once, and he had already gone and wasted it on that stupid mayoral election. But there were several side notes that were very intriguing. The most interesting one was in half-gone, but still incredibly detailed.

It was about a special crystal that could be found in the woods of Gravity Falls called "The Imperium Orb." It could control the actions of any ghost, turning them into the perfect mindless slave. Then he could find the other two journals, bring them together, and unleash the ultimate weapon.

It was time to take back the Mystery Shack, get his revenge on Dipper, take Mabel as his queen, and become ruler of Gravity Falls.

And nobody could get in his way.

But first, to get a new suit.

.

.

Danny sat on the rood of the house, feet swinging off the edge. He had stolen a popsicle from the cooler that Wendy had placed up here, even though it was most likely out of date.

The ghost boy was enjoying the cold air (the snow had mostly melted, but it was still icy out) as clouds covered the sun and and the afternoon got even more chilly.

A trickle of blue mist floated out of his mouth and dissipated into the air.

Danny looked up, his hand resting on the pocket where he kept his Witch Bottle. When the mist came again, he stood up and let the familiar transformation take over him.

The Halfa floated off of the roof and swooped over the top of the trees. When no attack was forthcoming, he flipped over in the air and narrowed his eyes. There was something out there. The normal ghosts in Gravity Falls didn't seem to set off his ghost sense nearly as much as they did before (although he still got a tingling sensation whenever he was near one) so it couldn't've been one of them.

Was it the Box Ghost? He was still the most common enemy that Danny had to face, and he somehow managed to escape from pretty much any container that they put him in. It was still really annoying.

It went off again. Danny frowned and squinted up at the cliffs nearby.

That was when scaly clawed hands latched onto his upper arms. Something metallic was snapped around his throat, and then he couldn't feel his powers anymore.

Danny gasped and twisted in the air, trying to go intangible. But a powerful electric shock ran through his body, and the ghost boy yelped in pain. He suddenly found himself powerlessly suspended high above the earth, with a ghost holding him captive.

The ghost that captured him dropped back down to the ground, still clutching the ghost boy to his body. Danny guessed that it had a fire core from the way that its scales seemed to glow and practically radiated with heat. That wasn't good; fire and ice were natural opposites, and his core was only just beginning to heal in the cold weather.

"Well, well. What do we have here?" A nasally voice with a southern accent came from behind him and his captor. "Slave! Turn around!"

The ghost holding Danny did as the person bid, and the ghost boy blinked in surprise at the sight of a short boy with large white hair in a blue suit standing in front of him.

Then he spotted what the kid held in one hand out of the corner of his eye.

He immediately resumed struggling, trying desperately to keep himself from looking in the scarlet sphere.

 _("There's a good slave. Just look into the crystal ball...")_

"Now, now, no struggling."

The boy with white hair roughly grabbed his chin and forced him to meet his eyes. He smiled evilly.

"Good. Now just look at the orb, and I'll let you go."

Danny started to thrash his limbs.

 _(No no I won't be controlled again I won't I won't I_ _won't._ _)_

"Drop him." The command was sharp, and suddenly there were _whips whips vivisection please no no you can't I'm your son you can't._

Danny landed on a bed of wet pine needles and tried to run off into the forest, but then something was shoved in front of his face.

The ghost boy jerked back and squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

"Look at it! Look at it, you worthless piece of ectoplasmic scum!"

He froze, the agent's words slipping into his brain like shards of red-hot metal.

 _Do the world a favor and die, you worthless scum! Nobody will care, and we'll just experiment on your corpse._

Danny's eyes snapped open, glowing acid green. Energy snapped around his hands, impeded by the collar that the enemy-no, not the enemy, just someone who was _controlled_ by the enemy-had clipped around his neck.

He whirled around and stared straight into the orb.

 _Danny was drowning in a sea of bloody red. Crimson swirled around him, and the Halfa kicked out desperately._

"Good slave. Stand up."

 _A voice penetrated the darkness, and Danny's head lifted. That voice... that voice was his master. He would do whatever they asked._

 _It was his duty as a slave, after all._

"Excellent, ghost. Now, we're going to the Mystery Shack."

 _Mystery Shack... home. Home. Home. Home._

 _"No." A thought came to him through the clouds._

 _"Home is where your master is. Home is where_ I _am."_

 _Danny kept paddling, desperate to keep his head above the foggy waves._

 _"Yes master." he thought back dutifully. "Yes master."_

 _Far beneath the red ocean, a boy with black hair and glowing blue eyes screamed for his body to listen to him._


	8. Red Stone (Part Two)

**The Keeper of Worlds:** He just has the worst luck, doesn't he?

 **unique is cool:** Heh, yep. Any mental shields that he had are now gone-it was only a matter of time before someone tried their own hand at manipulation.

 **DimondDoggie:** BECAUSE I'M EVIL, THAT'S HOW.

 **neonnerd1:** Yep, just a little bit more "raw" and untapped.

 **Please don't take driving lessons from Mabel Pines. This has been a PSA.**

 _Someone was trying to get his attention. But his master needed him right now. His master had a plan, and so they would win._

 _His master would win. But would he himself?_

"Fight it!"

 _Who was talking?_

"Fight it!"

 _Something flickered in the red. For a moment, the world swung into clarity._

 _What was he doing?_

 _._

 _._

Wendy sprinted through the woods, trying to outrun the swarm of ghosts on her tail. They were all grey-green and scaly, with glowing red eyes and long lizard tails. The malevolent creatures bared razor sharp fangs and snapped at her heels. Wendy swore under her breath and kept running.

"Dad!" She shouted. "Dad! I really need some help!"

The redhead ducked a low hanging branch and hacked another to pieces. Danny had infused her ax with ectoplasm as a personal favor, but there were still too many ghosts for her to hit even if they couldn't just phase through them.

A large green shield suddenly expanded in front of her, and Wendy recognized Danny's ectoplasm. She smiled in relief and was about to thank him when the ghost boy shimmered into visibility in front of her.

Danny looked exactly the same, except for one particular detail.

His eyes were glowing blood red.

Wendy gasped. "D-Danny?"

He raised a glowing fist-and stopped. His eyes started to flicker from green to red, and he clutched at his white hair.

The Halfa looked up, irises shining. "W-Wendy? W-what? How?"

"Slave!" A familiar voice barked.

Wendy immediately whipped out her ax and managed to haul herself up the Douglas Fir next to her. She mentally thanked her father forcing her to compete in the annual lumberjack games that were held for all of Oregon.

The teenager hid herself in the boughs of the tree, watching as a familiar boy marched forward. Gideon was clutching a strange red orb in his hand, and Wendy frowned.

"What the heck is that?" She muttered.

The small fake psychic growled. "Slave! What do you think you're doing? I gave you an order to track down the Corduroy girl and take her to the Mystery Shack. What do you think that you are doing?"

Wendy had to restrain herself from attacking. _Nobody_ was allowed to speak to her little brother that way. Especially not freaks who wore too much hair product.

Beneath her, Danny twitched and shivered. Gideon sneered.

"Trying to break free, eh? Well, I can take care of that." He raised the crimson sphere and forced Danny to look at it. Wendy growled when she saw that bruises had already formed on his jaw, probably from the first time that Gideon had tried controlled the teenager.

As she watched, the group of ghosts and humans kept going through the trees. Towards the Mystery Shack. (They still called it that, even though it was permanently closed.)

The lumberjack pulled out her phone and dialed a number. Even though it had taken forever to teach him how to use a cellphone, she regretted none of it now.

Wendy spoke softly, just in case Gideon knew about a ghost's enhanced senses.

"Ford, we've got a big problem."

.

.

"So, basically we need to get down to Gravity Falls as fast as possible to stop our friend who's being controlled by someone who wants to date Mabel from destroying the town," Dipper summed up for their parents.

The two adult blinked at him as Mabel nodded in agreement.

It was clear within two seconds that they didn't believe them.

Their mother huffed angrily. "Young man, I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish by lying, but we certainly aren't going to let you go running around all the way up to Oregon!"

Mabel bristled, startling the older Pines family members. "It's not a lie! We need to go help our family! We aren't even asking you to do anything big. Just drive us up there as fast as you possibly can, preferably ignoring road safety laws."

"We're not going to just drop everything and go gallivanting off to some town in Nowheres-ville!" Their father said firmly.

The two thirteen year olds looked at each other. They knew what they had to do.

Mabel stood up. "I'm sorry."

She whipped glitter out of her pocket and blew it into her parents faces. They both yelped in surprise and grabbed at their eyes in pain.

Dipper grabbed his sister by the hand and dragged her out of the door, snagging the keys as he went. The two teens sprinted down the driveway and jumped into the car.

"You're sure you know how to do this?" Dipper asked.

Mabel scoffed. "Of course. I watched S-Stan drive all of the time. I think I can manage a little drive up to the next state."

"Stan was also a convicted criminal!"

"Details!"

And thus followed the most terrifying ride of Dipper's life.

.

.

Gideon and his group of slaves circled the area around the former Mystery Shack. It didn't look as... _abandoned_ as he had expected it to. Maybe there were some homeless people living in it?"

That theory was immediately debunked when an ax flew through the window and impaled one of his ghosts in the arm. It roared in pain and ripped it out, casting the blade aside.

A redheaded face stuck her head out of the window. "You guys better stay away, or you might just find that my aim gets a lot better!"

Someone reached out and dragged her back down. Gideon growled.

That girl was supposed to be his ransom. He knew that Dipper had once had a crush on her, so using the teenager as bait seemed like a simple plan. He had forgotten that she was raised by "Manly" Dan Corduroy.

That was a mistake.

Gideon growled. "Corduroy, get out here before I have my most powerful minion attack this Shack and demolish it with you inside."

That was when the door burst open and a blue ray of light smashed into the first line of ghosts.

.

.

"Attack," _his master commanded._ "Hurt them! Make them pay!"

 _Danny swooped forward, the fog momentarily clearing and allowing him a shot at his targets. A girl with long red hair and two men, one much younger than the other and the other with a trench coat._

 _He launched an icy blast and tried to stick their feet to the ground._

 _The girl spun around._ "Danny! You gotta fight it!"

 _The ghost boy froze, and the fog momentarily lifting slightly. Then it slammed back again, and Danny struggled for air._

"Attack, slave! You belong to me," _his master growled._

 _So Danny obeyed, but pulled his punches and held back on his blasts. Something was telling him not to hurt them. That they were part of his family._

 _The older man in a trench coat spun around to face the younger one._ "Soos! Witch Bottle!"

 _A glasslike object was tossed into the air, landing neatly in the man's hand. A faint light sucked in one of the other ghosts, and Danny saw a smaller version of the creature trapped inside._

 _Then the battle was mostly a blur(fight don't kill kill kill kill can't)-until he saw the trench coat man point something that looked like a gun at his master._

 _Before he even knew what he was doing, Danny dove in between the man and his master._

 _Danny saw the girl and the other man freeze, as well as two smaller kids that had appeared in the middle of the battle after almost running into a tree with a car that Danny somehow knew that they had stolen._

 _The man with the gun looked at him. He was... scared? Why was he scared? He didn't look like he was scared_ of _him, just..._ for _him._

"Danny," _the trench coat man said calmly._ "I need you to get out of the way."

"No, slave!" _His master growled._ "You obey me, not whoever this is. Attack him."

 _The Halfa charged up a fatal ectoblast and aimed it at the man's chest. But his body was shaking, and his vision was flickering in and out of focus._

 _Master-enemy-master._

 _Enemy-Ford-protector-enemy._

 _Wendy-friend-sister-enemy._

 _Enemy-Soos-strange-friend-enemy._

 _Mabel-friend-sister-enemy._

 _Enemy-Dipper-brother-enemy._

"Danny," _Ford-enemy-Ford-protector-help help help me please I don't know what to do-enemy said calmly._ "Do you trust me?"

 _Those words resonated inside of his skull as Danny clutched at his head, red ripping apart around him and-_

The air was clear and he could see oh god what had he almost done?

Danny dropped to the ground and almost missed the blur of motion that signaled Mabel firing her grappling hook and nailing the kid who had the orb in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt anyone I'm sorry I'm sorry it's all my fault I don't deserve to live I'm just a freak of nature I'm a monster-"

"Danny." Ford crouched down in front of them with a nod to the twins, who lunged over to the white-haired and grabbed him. "You're downward spiraling."

The teen was shaking, and suddenly rolled over and vomited on the grass. His shoulders trembled, and he was shivering despite his cold core.

"We got Gideon!" Mabel called. "And we stuck a sock in his mouth so he can't annoy us and ask me to marry him when he wakes up!"

Dipper sent an uneasy glance at the parking lot. "We are going to be in _so_ much trouble when we get home."

Wendy laughed. "What did you two do? And who the hell drove you here?"

"Uh, we kinda... drove ourselves?"

The older girl beamed and ruffled Mabel's hair. "Aw, your first heist. I feel so proud."

Dipper picked up the Imperium Orb-it had rolled from Gideon's hand and ended up in a small pothole.

"What's this?"

Danny flinched away, squeezing his eyes shut with a small sob.

Dipper's eyes went wide. "Is this what he used to..." At Danny's nod he gulped. "Oh."

He held the crystal at arms length, looking at it in disgust. "What are we going to do with it?"

"Break it," Ford answered, not moving from his spot. "Soos, would you..."

The man child nodded and plucked the scarlet sphere from Dipper's hands. Putting one hand on either side, Soos smashed it as if it were a grape. He winced as he pulled a sliver of crystal from his palm.

"Ow. Why didn't I just use a rock?"

Dipper sat down beside Ford, Mabel taking her seat beside him. The thirteen year old had a solemn expression.

"Danny, you know that we would _never_ control you like that, right?"

The teenager curled up on himself.

Mabel wrapped her arms around Danny. "We're going to hunt down every single one of those orbs and we are going to destroy them," Mabel promised. "And if anyone ever tries to do that again, not even road safety laws can keep me and Dipper from getting here as fast as we can and helping you out."

Dipper blanched. "And I thought that she was bad in a golf cart..."

Danny smiled at them. "T-thanks."

But the words that Gideon called him were still ringing inside his head, repeating over and over.

And the worst part? Danny knew that they were true.


	9. Our Sutures

**unique is cool:** That's only because I've already written up to chapter thriteen on Wattpad. Right now it's just copy and paste.

 **dragoncreators:** Because I am an evil monster who exists on pain and the tears of DP and GF fans.

 **This chapter isn't really relevant to the timeline and the sort-of plot that I'm trying to set up, and it's mostly just filler angst. Angst for the sake of angst and gore. The last few lines should probably be read, though. Those are important.**

 _Eyes. Eyes. Eyes everywhere. They blinked at him, slitted black pupils glowing against yellow scleras. Grey and black tendrils grabbed his wrists, then his arms, then his shoulders. Burning pain erupted through his body, but one of the tentacles wrapped around his mouth and muffled his cry of pain._

 _His fingers twitched as he tried to shed the darkness, but then someone was laughing laughing laughing at his pain. Blue fire scorched his skin, and he screamed._

 _._

 _._

Danny hovered above the lake, watching the sunlight play off of the waves. The roaring from the waterfall was pounding in his ears.

The ghost boy lowered himself down to around six feet above the water lake and then dropped his power of flight. He held his breath and landed in the lake with a loud splash.

Danny blinked open his eyes and peered through the dark water. Bubbles floated up around him, and a small amount of water made its way into his nose and trickled down his throat. Something scraped his spine painfully, but he ignored it.

The Halfa's lungs burned, but he ignored and even relished the pain. He spotted a dark shape far too big to be a fish flash by in a blur of scales.

Air. Air. He needed air. Even Halfas in their ghost form needed to breath once and a while.

But it was nice down here. Dark. Cold. Safe.

Finally, as he was about to pass out, Danny rose up from the bottom of the lake and let his head break the surface.

Frigid water had drenched his body, but it felt good on his cold core. Danny's body glowed bright white, and he charged up a small ball of ice in his palm. Frost crystals swirled and danced through the air, and the ghost boy watched with detached interest as tiny snowflakes spun around in a tiny whirlwind that chased its own tail.

He should probably head back to the Shack. There was no real reason to stay here any longer-he had only even ventured down here in the first place to see if he could freeze the waterfall. (He could.)

The ghost boy lifted off from the lake and turned intangible, letting the water fall back down to the waves below. The moment that he regained his ability to physically touch things, a raindrop fell on his head.

Danny looked up. Grey clouds had covered the sun, and they promised that more rain was on its way.

The Halfa took off for the Mystery Shack as lightning flashed in the distance, followed a few seconds later by a loud rumble of thunder.

Danny had just barely made it back by the time the storm hit.

.

.

 ** _ **"You're a fool if you think that you've defeated me,"**_** _that familiar echoing voice cackled._ ** _ **"I may not be as powerful as I was, but I can still give you a small taste of my revenge."**_**

 _Blood pooled from the body that lay at his feet. The sticky red liquid covered everything, including the red and gold book that one of the corpses held clutched to its chest._

 _"You lied," someone said in a conversational manner from behind him. "You said that you would help us. But you just doomed us instead!"_

 _He spun around, weapon raised threateningly. Wendy, body caked with blood and with her intestines spilling out, smirked at him._

 _"What? It wasn't bad enough when you killed us, now you're going to add insult to injury and shoot us too? Besides," the lumberjack growled, slowly advancing and jabbing her finger into his chest with every word that she spoke. "We all know that this is all your fault. We_ trusted _you." She shook her head bitterly. "Guess the feeling wasn't mutual."_

 _Somebody else poked his shoulder, and then shook it. There was a falling sensation, and then..._

He fell off of the couch that he had been sleeping on, still half in the dream. His hands fumbled for his gun... but it wasn't there, and instead Ford found himself face to face with Danny.

The ghost boy was cringing away with a terrified expression on his face. Danny had his arms raised, and he was protecting his face and chest with his hands. His irises were shining green through his eyelids, and he had made himself look as small as was physically possible. For some reason, he hadn't turned invisible, but Ford suspected that it wouldn't take very much movement to scare him out of the realm of visibility.

Ford forced his body to relax.

"Danny, are you okay?" He asked softly.

The ghost boy peeked up at him through his fingers. His shoulders were trembling.

"I-I'm sorry," he whispered. "You j-just looked like you were having a nightmare and-and I just wanted to help. I'm sorry p-please don't be mad."

"It's okay," Ford assured him. "You didn't do anything wrong." He paused. "I thought you were at the lake?"

"There's a th-thunderstorm..." Danny shifted his weight from foot to foot. As if to illustrate his statement, there was a loud rumble that joined the pattering sound of the rain on the roof.

"Didn't want to get struck by lightning?"

Danny shook his head and looked down nervously.

"What's the question?"

The ghost boy looked up in surprise. "Huh?"

"You're making the 'I have a question and I want it answered but I don't want to have to actually ask for the answer' face," Ford explained. "I grew up with someone who wore that face constantly."

Danny studied his hands. "What were you and Stan like? When you were kids, I mean."

Immediately, Ford could tell that that wasn't the question that he wanted answered. But...

"Mabel and Dipper," he replied. "But more extreme. I was smarter at almost everything (Stan was always a little bit better at math), but he was more physical. If one of us was going to get in trouble, it would be him. He would... protect me at school, from bullies and rude teachers. In return, I sort of tutored him-even though he still failed."

"Oh." Danny rubbed his arms. "I-I'm sorry. I know that it was my fault. And I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." Ford tried to say, but it came out a little bit too strangled.

The ghost boy shrugged. He looked up, a small bitter smile on his face. "Do you have any books that I could read?"

Ford waved a hand to the hallway. "There should be something on one of the shelves out there."

The ghost boy nodded and then slipped away.

Ford sat on the couch. He remembered Bill's words in his dream.

 ** _ **"I can still give you a small taste of my revenge."**_**

Bill still had minions in their world. And they were coming.


	10. Supernatural Protection (Part One)

**Wendy is a badass and we must all accept this as a fact. This is the second longest arc, and the last one that is completely written. The Ectofire Arc is only one chapter long so far. This is arc isn't too angsty, but the next one... Oh boy.**

Wendy was eating a large stack of pancakes when the thought occured to her.

At first she thought that it would never work. That all of the creatures in the woods of Gravity Falls are evil, and would much rather kill a human than fight for their safety.

Then she remembered what Dipper told her about the Multibear, and Mabel's stories about Mermando. She thought of Danny, who was scared of new people and still scarred by betrayal and death even as he healed and learned to trust people again.

Wendy smiled to herself. Maybe, _just maybe,_ her idea could work.

.

.

"So, it would be like a police force for monsters?" Danny tilted his head.

Wendy shrugged. "Kinda. But there would be people too, and they could learn how to fight beside and against monsters. And ghosts, too."

"Well, it _sounds_ like it would be interesting to try," Danny said with a nod. "But are you sure that you could get enough volunteers?"

The older girl smiled. "Dunno. But I'm gonna call up the twins, see if they would be interested."

Dipper and Mabel were grounded after their little stunt with the car. They weren't allowed to have friends over, go out after school, or do anything really other than stay at home and read.

Mabel had a stolen a phone from her mother and called Wendy up five times just to complain about how boring it was. And that was nothing compared to the rant she gave to Candy and Grenda.

"They'll probably want to help," Danny agreed.

"Yep. Plus, they know most of the monsters in the forest. Hey, wanna help me make flyers?"

For the rest of the day, Danny and Wendy designed and drew up flyers and pamphlets that they (well, mostly Wendy) could pass out.

The posters were white, with a navy blue title that proudly read, "Supernatural Protection Agency." Beneath it, Danny neatly wrote that all were welcome and training wasn't mandatory, as Wendy would be offering fighting lessons to all of those who needed them.

The lumberjack grinned and waved it triumphantly. "Okay, now we just need to copy it. I'll go do that, you just wait right here until I come back."

Grabbing a piece of scratch paper and one of the pencils, Danny started to absentmindedly doodle on the edge of the page. He loosly sketched the Box Ghost, then Box Lunch. She really took after her father.

"What are you drawing?"

Danny yelped in surprise and jumped two feet in the air, floating off of the ground.

Ford was leaning against the doorway. "I was just wondering."

Danny dropped back down. "I drew the Box Ghost and his daughter."

Ford's eyes sparked with interest. "His daughter?"

"Yeah. I try not to think about it, honestly. Her name is Box Lunch, daughter of the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady."

"Ghosts can have kids?"

"Umm, yeah. I, uh, think that it happens, um, the same way that it does for humans, but..." Danny shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not about to just go up and ask."

"Huh. Does the child have the same powers as their parents do?"

Danny shrugged. "Box Lunch did, but I don't know if it's the same for any of the others."

Wendy walked back in. "What are you two talking about?"

"Ghost kids," Ford answered, looking at her flyers. "What are those?"

"Posters for my Monster Police," she answered cheerfully.

"Monster Police?"

"I'm gonna ask around and see how many ghosts, monsters, and humans want to help me protect the town because the normal police are so useless."

"Do you think that it'll work?"

"Sure do. The real concern here is that we'll end up with a bunch of creatures who are just looking for some free snacks." Wendy tapped her ever-present ax. "That's why I've got this, and Danny for backup."

Ford looked at the ghost boy. "Backup?"

"Invisible backup. If Wendy needs help then I'll be right there, but if not than nobody will know that I exist."

Wendy handed Danny a stack of papers. "Here. You take one half, I'll get the other. You take north plus that side of the woods and I'll go south."

The Halfa nodded and let his legs join together to form the familiar spectral tail. Letting his body go intangible, Danny lifted up through the ceiling and soared out over the town and the forest beyond.

He had flyers to hang.

.

.

Wendy walked toward the clearing that was to be their meeting place, Danny trailing her invisibly.

She glanced over to where she thought that he was. "Okay, cross your fingers and hope that people showed."

She stepped forward and up onto an enormous tree stump-and gasped in shocked disbelief.

There was a large crowd of creatures and humans alike, all of them looking at her with hopeful expressions.

Wendy spotted Candy and Grenda at the front of the group, next to a small red _dragon._ A trio of centaurs was conversing amongst themselves, while a small troup of pixies fluttered around their heads. Pacifica was standing at the back of the crowd, looking nervous and out of place beside something that could only have been the Multibear. A bipedal fox with wire-rimmed glasses squinted at her from his spot atop the back of a giant manticore. There were just... _So many._

Wendy let out a small squeak, but luckily only Danny caught it. There was a faint chill on her arm, and she knew that he had rested an intangible hand there.

 _I can do this,_ she thought. _I'm Wendy Corduroy. I've fought shapeshifters, ghosts, demons, and puberty. I can handle this._

"Attention!" She shouted.

They all stopped talking and looked up at her.

"I am Wendy Corduroy," she continued. "You all showed up here today because you wanted to be a part of something bigger than yourselves. Well, you're going to be." She paused, then sheepishly added, "Sorry, I'm no good at speeches."

There was a roar of collective laughter, and suddenly Wendy realized that they were laughing _with_ her, not _at_ her.

The redhead grinned. Now, _this_ she could get used to.

"Okay, so if you have had any training at all, go over and stand on that side of the clearing..."


	11. Supernatural Protection (Part Two)

**The reason that this chapter is so late is because I'm trying to get you guys used to slower updates. I only have three chapter (counting this one) left that are already written, so... Yeah.**

 **On with the show!**

She had been eating when the call came. It was just a small tickle at the back of her head, but it was one that signaled the arrival of an old friend.

 _"Hey, Cipher."_

 ** _ **"Been a long time, hasn't it my lovely widow. "**_**

 _"I was starting to think that you had forgotten about me."_

 ** _ **"Nah, I've just been a bit preoccupied."**_**

 _"I heard about your defeat in the paper. Lottsa people think that it was some kinda storm. I could tell by the town that it was you."_

 ** _ **"Am I that predictable, poison?"**_**

 _"Just a tad. Why are ya callin' me if you've been banished?"_

 ** _ **"Revenge."**_**

 _"From the Mindscape? You can't do much more than send 'em nightmares now."_

Inwardly, she knows that it's a bad idea to get on his bad side. Luckily, he seems more amused than angry.

 ** _ **"Well, now you've gotten me thinking. How'd you like to take a road trip over to good ol' Gravity Falls?"**_**

Oh, she can tell that he's playing her like a fiddle, but she never could resist a taste of power.

She smirked in anticipation. Bill may not be her closest ally, but you can't deny that he has style.

 _"As long as I get some new prey outta the deal."_

It looked like she was going to pay a visit to the little town that managed to defeat a dream demon.

.

.

"Okay, so what do you do if you encounter a hostile dragon?" Wendy paused and looked out over the collected group of monsters and humans.

"Stop, drop, and roll!" One of her little brothers called.

Everyone else burst out laughing, and he blushed. Wendy smiled and shook her head.

"No, but if they light you on fire then feel free. Actually, you should try to initiate a trade-off. Give them something as a token-a watch, a necklace, and expensive earring. You may not want to part with it, but at least you won't be barbecued."

Candy raised her hand. "When can we start going out on patrol? I want to fight!"

The tiny Korean teenager was humming with excitement, a huge grin on her face and a small knife (where the hell did she get that?) in her hand.

"Um, no. We still have to work out all of the kinks before the younger members go out." Wendy shifted.

Candy scowled. "Dang it."

Wendy will never _not_ think that it's funny that Candy refuses to say _crap, damn,_ or even _darn,_ but _fuck, shit, hell,_ and all the rest are just fine. Grenda, at least, can swear like a sailor.

There was humming sound, and one of the pixies zoomed up to her. The pixie was purple all over, with different shades for her skin, eyes, hair, wings, and clothes. Wendy remembered that her name is Mauve.

"Wendy!" She said loudly-pixies have naturally small voices, and usually have to shout for humans to be able to hear them. "The bartender at Gnasty's saw something last night. He said that it seemed... hungry."

"Did he say what it was?" The redhead waved a dismissal to her impromptu class and gave the pixie girl her undivided attention.

Mauve nodded her head. "Uh, yes. He did."

Wendy made a _go on_ motion with her hand.

Mauve blushed. "You have to understand-he didn't seem very drunk, and I don't think that he was lying. So, just, keep an open mind, okay?"

"What did he see?" Wendy frowned. Usually pixies were a little bit more straightforward. Unless it had something to do with one of their natural predators, like catfish, spiders, snakes, eagles, etc.

"He-he said..." Mauve paused before saying the next words in a rush. "He said it was a giant spider!"

.

.

Danny walked down the street, sticking to shadows and trying not to draw attention to himself. Wendy was by herself for the day-she was constantly insisting that he needed to get out more, and that she could take care of herself.

Which was true.

Someone laid their hand on his shoulder.

Danny jumped, twisting around to look at the person. Who... wasn't an agent, which was good.

But there was still something _off_ about her. Maybe it was the weird glasses, or the way that her hair seemed to defy the laws of physics. Her bad tan lines were kind of icky too.

She smiled at him, but it seemed rather fake. "I'm sorry for scaring you, darlin'. I was just wonderin' if you knew the way to the Mystery Shack?"

Danny narrowed his eyes. "There's nowhere called the Mystery Shack here."

"Well, but _of course_ there is," she laughed. "Unless..." Her eyes narrowed. "Oh. You're _that_ one."

That would be Danny's cue to leave. He turned to run, but instead got something snagged his sleeve. The woman dragged him back towards her.

"What's the rush, kiddo? You'll be the perfect bait."

The ghost boy tried to go intangible, but instead found his arms pinned to his body by something white, strong, and sticky. Danny opened his mouth to shout for help, ice sputtering at his fingertips.

"Get away from him!"

A redheaded, flannel missile launched itself at the not-woman from out of nowhere, swinging an ax. The not-woman laughed, her eyes turning black.

"Girls aren't my usual prey, but I think I can make an exception for you."

She lifted up into the air, clothes splitting and long, hairy arachnid legs bracing themselves against the walls of the small corridor between buildings that was behind them.

The same material that bound Danny (webbing, the Halfa now realized) fired from a spinneret and wrapped around Wendy. The teenage girl swore and tried to hack it off of her, but the ax just stuck before being ripped away.

More web pinned Danny to a wall, and the not-woman grinned.

"Pass along a message for me, would ya?" She said conversationally. "Tell whoever's staying at the Shack to come meet me in the forest tonight if you ever want to see this girl alive. Although I can't promise that she'll be unharmed..."

With a strangely contorted laugh, she scuttled up the side of the Coin Wash and leapt to the nearby trees.

Someone cut Danny free with a piece of broken glass.

"Are you okay?"

Mabel's friend, Candy, leaned over him. The other one-Grenda-was waving one of her enormous fists in the direction of the spider-woman.

"I-I think." Danny gulped. "That thing took Wendy!"

Candy nodded solemnly. "I know. We saw. And now it's time to get her back!"

"How?"

The small Korean girl nodded to her friend. "Grenda."

Grenda took a deep breath, before letting out a loud bellowing sound that almost sounded like an angry bull elephant.

A swarm of monsters and a few people charged out of the woods, buildings, shadows, and holes in the ground.

Candy punched her hand. "We have _backup."_

"Um, yeah." Danny looked at the horde. "I think that'll do it."


	12. Supernatural Protection (Part Three)

**Guest:** Um, why?

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** No such thing as overkill in Grenda and Candy's opinions.

 **Fear the Fuzzy Bear:** Thank you! And I'm not telling...

 **EclipseWolf583:** Not telling. And if I do write it, it will be mostly an implied thing because I am really bad at writing romance.

 **The fight with Darlene is** ** _super_** **rushed because I'm just soooo excited for the next chapter arc. Ahaha you guys are going to hate me. I just love torturing my children...**

Wendy thrashed and struggled against the the thick ropey webs that secured her to the wreckage of a rusty old car. One that had several mysterious fluid stains on it that she was _not_ going to think about the origins of. Eww.

The spider-woman ("Call me Darlene, honey," she purred) was perched in a nearby tree. She was rubbing her front legs together, eyes glowing black as a smirk adorned her face.

Ugh. This was really gross. Almost worse than that one time-actually, Wendy decided that she wasn't going to think about that when she was probably going to die.

Darlene smiled at her predatorily. "You're not going to get you of that, girlie. _My_ web is the strongest in the county. Except for maybe one of my cousins', but she doesn't even use hers to snag prey! A real disappointment if you ask me. Even works to help _catch_ the criminals. Some kinda secretary job. This is a much better use of my abilities, doncha think?"

The lumberjack glared daggers at her captor, trying to send several, ah, _rather unsavory_ words in her direction with only her angry green eyes. Her ax was gone, still lying in the street somewhere in town. Hopefully Danny had it.

 _Danny!_

Oh man, Wendy hoped that he hadn't done anything stupid. If he was smart, Danny would go straight to either Ford or to some of the more powerful members of her fledgeling supernatural police.

Like Rusty or Sardonyx. She could _really_ use a dragon right about now.

Speaking of which, at least now she knew what the giant spider was that bartender at Gnasty's saw. A literal giant spider.

Something hummed by her ear.

The redhead turned her head as much as she could, wincing as some of the hair was pulled out of her scalp.

One of Mauve's cousins was peeking out of the leaves near her face, bright blue wings fluttering.

"We're ready to get you out of here!" She chattered excitedly. "Just say the word!"

Wendy blinked. and tried to say, "Um, actually, please don't do that and go tell Danny, Candy, and Grenda that this is a shitty plan."

But instead of the intended message, the pixie heard muffled sounds and mouth noises. So naturally she assumed that Wendy was giving her the "go ahead."

Naturally.

Mauve's cousin zoomed away, piping in her tiny pixie voice, "Wendy says go! Go, go, go!"

Wendy's eyes widened frantically, and she started to squirm in desperation. No!

Darlene hissed and jumped from her spot, landing only a few feet above the teenage girl's head.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

That, of course, was when everything went to hell in a hand basket.

Grenda burst out of the foliage, Candy perched on her shoulders. The muscular girl let out a loud war cry and launched the smaller teen off of her body and into the air.

"Candy, attack!" The tiny Korean girl screamed as she was rocketed through the air.

She pulled out a butcher knife and stabbed down at Darlene. The spider-woman growled and scuttled away before Candy could make contact. But she wasn't fast enough to dodge the ectoblast that nailed her in the abdomen.

Darlene wailed and rolled aside. Then she lifted up two of her hairy arachnid legs to the corners of her mouth and... turned her body inside out.

Of course.

The monster's mandibles snapped at thin air, and Wendy hoped that she had missed the ghost boy. Luckily, the second blast (this one made of ice) hit the spider-woman from behind.

Someone-a young centaur named Jessabelle-cut Wendy free and pressed her ax into her hand. The lumberjack smiled at the other girl.

"You ready to kick some spider butt?"

Jessabelle whinnined in response and took off, clearing a path through the sticky webbing. The centaur slammed her front hooves down on Darlene's back, before being ensnared by the horrifying spider monster.

It was Wendy's police force verses a rather overpowered spider-woman, and soon the winner was clear.

Darlene didn't stand a chance.

Not too long after the fight started, it was over.

Darlene was dead-killed by what Rusty claimed to be a "stray blast," even though they all knew that the young scarlet dragon had done it on purpose.

Wendy was free, if missing some skin on her arms, legs, neck, and face. Those webs felt kinda like bandaids when you pulled them off, only much worse.

Ouch.

Danny dropped back into visibility not long after the monster was killed, nervous about the amount of people and creatures in the small clearing. There were just... so many.

Thankfully, Wendy soon noticed his discomfort and caused a diversion that allowed him to slip away unnoticed.

The ghost boy alighted down at the Mystery Shack, tired beyond belief. He had just fought a giant spider-he needed some rest.

He needed to sleep.

.

.

Far away from a less-than-sleepy town in Roadkill County Oregon, a man sat at a well-organized desk. He drummed his fingers on the top of it, flicking absentmindedly through several files, until one in particular caught his eye.

He frowned and pressed the button for the intercom system.

This simply would not do.

There was a faint tickle at the back of his mind, and it was followed by a peculiar sensation as if something were rooting through his mind and leaving no stone unturned.

 _ ** **"Well, well. What do we have here?"****_

He forced himself to stay calm. "And who might you be?"

 _ ** **"The name's Bill. Bill Cipher. I have a little... proposition for you that I think could be mutually beneficial."****_

"What's in it for me, Mr. Cipher?"

He could practically hear the smirk in Cipher's voice. _****"I know how to find a certain someone that you've been looking for..."****_

"Oh, really? And who might that be, exactly?"

 _ ** **"A Halfa by the name of Danny Phantom."****_

The man started, before smirking. "I think that that will do nicely, Mr. Cipher."

 _ ** **"That's what I thought. I'll come collect my payment later."****_

Then the presence was gone, as if it had never even been there in the first place.

He reached out, contacting his secretary this time.

"Stephanie? Be a dear and send over Jack and Madeline. I have a ghost for them to hunt."

Agent Z smirked. Oh, the Halfa menace known as Danny Phantom wouldn't get away from them this time around.


	13. Ectofire (Part One)

**The Keeper of Worlds:** Yep.

 **unique is cool:** Thank you!

 **EclipseWolf583:** Look! You're in this one too!

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** Yes, yes he is.

 **I know that some agender people prefer it/its pronouns and so that means they can be assigned a gender, but some people are idiots who don't know that.**

Danny crept along the edge of the house, weapon in hand. He was ready to take one any challenge, and win. But he didn't notice the shadow steadily slinking along behind him in preparation to attack. The other figure readied its own weapon of choice and-

"Gotcha!"

Danny yelped and spun around, to late to escape the ball of mud that smacked wetly into his side.

He mock scowled at Wendy. "No fair!"

"Hey, I've been mud fighting near this old Shack since before you even knew that it existed. There's no way that you'll be able to beat me," the lumberjack girl boasted, lightly thumping her chest.

Danny stuck his tongue out at her and picked up another ball of dirt, but before he could fire it Wendy's phone rang.

She held up a finger. "Just a sec." She fished it out of her pocket and smiled at the contact name listed. Wendy clicked the "accept call" button and held the phone to her ear.

"Wassup Dip?"

 _"Wendy, turn on the news. NPR, not the local channels. Now."_

Wendy nodded to Danny and motioned for him to follow her. "Alright, keep your shorts on. I'm outside. Now I'm in the Shack, and now I'm in the living room. Aaannd now I'm turning on the TV-oh my god, what the hell is this?!"

She stared at the TV in horror and confusion. In the upper right hand corner was a picture of Danny in ghost form, small red words speeding across the bottom too fast for her to follow. A man in a pure white suit was smiling sleazily at the news camera and taking up most of the screen.

"-Assured, we will not let the ghost menace that calls itself Danny Phantom continue to roam free. Our top agents are already on the case, and we now have a general idea of where it is. Once it is recaptured, we will make sure that it never escapes again."

"And what do you plan to do with Phantom once you catch him?" The reporter asked.

"Don't assign it a gender, ma'am. It's just an ectoplasmic piece of scum unfit to walk this fine earth. Once we catch it, we'll make sure that it remembers that."

Danny let out a small whimper, and the redhead noticed that he was shaking. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder as an image of four teenagers was thrown up on the TV.

"Phantom is responsible for the deaths of three teens named Samantha Manson, Tucker Foley, Jasmine Fenton, and her younger brother Daniel Fenton."

Wendy was seriously considering attacking this guy through the TV screen. She didn't even notice when Dipper hung up.

Danny was still trembling, neon eyes green instead of blue in his distress. The older girl turned off the television with hands that were shaking with anger.

How _dare_ someone talk about Danny that way? She was going to rip the heads off of every single one of those scumbags and feed them to Rusty.

As she watched, the Halfa's legs crumpled beneath him and he curled up on the floor in a shaking ball. Wendy started to crouch down, but then something that the man on the TV had said came back to her.

 _"Our top agents are already on the case, and we now have a general idea of where it is."_

"Shit," Wendy swore under her breath. She reached out and pounded on the wall. "Ford! Get up here! Now!"

About a minute later he walked through the door. "I hope that this is impor-what's wrong with Danny?!"

Wendy ignored that question and ran a hand over the ghost boy's shoulder, wincing as he curled away from her fingers.

"Can you shield Danny from a ghost tracker?"

"Well, yes, but why?"

"Do it. The Guys in White just went public, and they're after Danny."

Ford's hand clenched around the handle of his gun. "How do you know?"

"Dipper called me and told me to turn on the news. It was a guy in a white suit talking about how his agents were already on the trail of ghost menace Danny Phantom. They're coming for him, Ford, and we need to stop it." Wendy let out a growl and gently rubbed Danny's back. "It's alright," she murmured to him. "We're gonna protect you."

"Okay. Okay. I should be able to hide his ectosignature, but it will take me at least a day to get it set up. And he'll have to wear it on his wrist. But, yes, I can do it."

Danny slightly lifted his head up off of the floor. "You can't-you don't-they'll hurt-"

Wendy patted him on the cheek in a condescending way. "Do you honestly think that we'd just leave you to those monsters?"

He looked away. "I just... It won't only be the agents. M-Maddie and Da-Jack will be there too, and I don't..."

"Oh," Wendy murmured. So _that's_ why Danny was so scared. It wasn't just the agents who were after Danny's head-it was his own parents too.

She called Dipper again. When he picked up, she left the room so that neither of the others would hear her and dropped her voice down to a whisper.

"Dips, Danny just had a bit of a breakdown. I need you two to get down here as fast as possible and help me whip everybody in Gravity Falls into a frenzy."

 _"Um, we_ _are_ _still grounded, you know that, right?"_

"Then steal another car. Just get your ass up to the Shack so that I can use you."

 _"For the record, Mabel was the one who stole the car, not me. But we will get there, I promise."_

He hung up, and Wendy sighed. It looked like it was time to use her influence.

Being the leader of a supernatural and paranormal police had its advantages from time to time. Like right now, for instance.

Wendy hit the contact for Pacifica. She didn't particularly like the younger teen, but that didn't mean that she was above asking for political favors. And the blond girl liked Danny well enough.

Next she called Candy and Grenda. Then Meredith and her wife Sally-their older daughter was a part of the police force.

Oh, Wendy Corduroy was going to raise hell on earth.


	14. Ectofire (Part Two)

**I'm gonna be out of town for a little while, so here-have this excuse for a chapter to tide you over. Just so you know, the next one is when everything goes to shit, so be warned.**

 **unique is cool:** SQUEE! Thank you!

 **The Keeper of Worlds:** Yeah, they're definitely in for a world of hurt once Wendy and her police force get their hands on them.

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** Oh, she will. And it's not just Danny that they're going to want-but that's all that I can say on the subject without spoilers!

 **Pretty soon we're going to start play the "how many times can I imply Fiddauthor without actually saying it" game.**

Danny fiddled with the small silver metal bracelet on his wrist. It was covered in small green and blue markings that almost looked like they belonged on some sort of cyborg, and there was a small lime green 'button' on it that had his symbol carved into it-Wendy was far more creative than people tended to give her credit for.

The bracelet acted as both a shield to the scanners that picked up his ectosignature and as a tracking device. Wendy and Ford (as well as Dipper and Mabel, who were both still in Piedmont but tried to call every day) both knew whether or not he was in Gravity Falls, as well as roughly where he was at any given time. At least it wasn't too specific.

Currently, the ghost boy was waiting for Wendy to get out of school while sitting in a tree. The teenage girl was staying late for detention, because "apparently kicking a boy's ass is usually enough to get someone suspended or even expelled, which is why they don't have any proof that it was me."

When the doors of the school were flung open and Wendy hurled herself down the steps, Danny jumped out of the tree. He used just enough of his powers to get himself down easily but not enough to raise suspicion. If anyone had been around to see it other than Wendy, that is.

She reached out and ruffled his hair. "You ready for later?"

"Yeah. Do you think he's telling the truth?"

"Oh, probably. You don't just _lie_ about a spaceship under the town where you live." Wendy grinned. "Plus, it certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing that we've seen."

"No. But still the coolest! Do you think that there is still alien technology in there? Maybe they had pictures-or whatever counts as pictures on their planet-of stars and galaxies that we've never been able to see from earth!" Danny couldn't hide his excitement.

Wendy laughed. "I didn't know that you liked space."

"I _love_ space. I always wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I know that I can't now, but... " Danny shrugged. "I still like the stars and the idea of exploring planets, though."

"I always wanted to be anything other than a full-time lumberjack. Being an astronaut sounds pretty cool though. I mean, obviously I could never actually be one, but it still sounds like an awesome job."

The ghost boy nodded eagerly. "You wanna go explore a spaceship?"

Wendy raised an eyebrow at him. "What kind of question is that?"

.

.

Wendy clambered down the rusty metal ladder that lead down into the saucer. Ford was beneath her and Danny was already at the bottom after sinking through the metal of the spaceship. He had promised not to run off and look around the ship without her, but they both knew it was a promise he would most likely break.

The teenager jumped down the last few feet. She looked round with wide eyes.

"This place is even cooler than that bunker down in the woods," she commented softly to herself.

Danny was up near the ceiling, studying some of the ancient symbols carved into the metal. Ford was looking around with a slightly nostalgic look on his face. He glanced over at Wendy.

"McGucket and I used to come down here to do, uh, research all of the time. We raided this place for parts to build the portal in the first place."

"I completely forgot about old man McGucket working with you," Wendy replied, blowing some dust off of a disk with several strange symbols carved into it. "Have you seen him since Bill?"

Ford shook his head. "No, not since I came back through the portal. How is he doing, by the way?"

Wendy winced. "Well, he's starting to get his memories back. But I think that after you... Disappeared, he went even more crazy with that whole memory-erasing junk. I think he's still living in the dump, although I'm pretty sure that I saw him building some kind of house over by the lake near Tate's place."

The clanging sounds that Ford was making behind her stopped abruptly.

"Fiddleford was living in a _dump?"_

"Er, yeah. He could hardly remember anything for a while, but it's starting to come back to him. He helped Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and I take down The Society of the Blind Eye."

Something grabbed Wendy's shoulder, and for a moment she thought that it was a very not-dead alien.

Ford spun her around to face him. "But he was living in a dump."

"Yeah." She nodded.

Ford stumbled back slightly with wide eyes and a horrified expression. "I didn't-I thought-"

Before he could form a complete sentence, something clanged loudly down in the tunnel.

Danny dropped down beside them. "It's not a ghost."

"It can't be an alien. All of them have been dead for at least a million years-probably. Which means that it has to be the-"

Two orbs whirred loudly and floated out of a corridor. Ford slowly pulled a black gun out of his trench coat. Wendy and Danny both privately wondered how he fit all of that stuff in there.

"-Security system," Ford finished. He looked at the two teens out of the corner of his eye. "Listen to me. These things can sense adrenaline. What ever you do, _stay calm_. You'll be safe as long as your heartbeat is steady."

One of the orbs tilted slightly towards Danny, then started to glitch and spark. Something that looked like a huge gun unfolded from the top of it, and then the alien machine collapsed on itself.

Danny blinked in confusion. "What?"

"It was built for humans, animals, and other creatures like them. Not ghosts or Halfas," Ford explained quietly as the second orb turned to him.

It stayed on him for about thirty seconds before humming and switching to Wendy.

The redheaded teen closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

 _I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am not afraid._

The robot buzzed and squeaked before zooming off down a passageway and smashing into a wall. Which in turn broke it into about a million pieces.

Wendy unfroze and let out a breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding.

Danny gave her a small high five.

Wendy's phone buzzed in her pocket, and she jumped slightly before looking sheepish.

"I'll be right back."

She walked over to a shadowy corner and held the phone to her ear.

"Yo, who is this? Make it fast, there's a reason that my phone was on vibrate."

 _"Wendy? Is Danny with you?"_

Dipper's voice was static-y-the connection underground really sucked, and the spaceship was interfering with the signal.

"Yeah, why?"

 _"Good. A guy in a white suit just knocked on our door and asked us a few questions. But then he went down to our neighbor's house too, so I don't think that he singled us out. He said that his name was Agent K."_

Wendy swore loudly. "Okay. What kinds of questions?"

 _"Where our parents were, if we had ever seen Danny, stuff like that. Mabel charmed him and then spoon-fed him a bunch of lies."_

"Anything about Oregon?" Wendy watched Danny from across the room.

 _"Yes. If we had ever been there, if so where in Oregon, whether we had any family there, etcetera. The answers were no, nowhere because of the first answer, and no again."_

Wendy nodded, even though the younger teen couldn't see it from Piedmont. "Alright. Call me again if anything else happens, 'kay?"

 _"Got it. Might be Mabel though, because she says that it's her turn. Bye."_

"Bye."

Hanging up and making her way back over to where the other two were, Wendy relayed all of the information to Ford in a whisper.

Danny still heard the whole thing.

.

.

Maddie Fenton checked the power level on her ectogun. Beside her, Jack tucked away the Jack-O-Nine-Tails as well as an extra Fenton bazooka.

They had received their directions from the head supervisor of the Guys in White, and all that they needed now was to get in their transportation.

Jack hopped in the driver's seat of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle, and Maddie grabbed ahold of the dashboard until her knuckles turned white.

She loved her husband, but he was a really terrible driver.

But they did have _a_ _lot_ of ground to cover.

After all, Gravity Falls was about halfway across the country from Amity Park.


	15. Ectofire (Part Three)

**unique is cool:** This is what's going to happen! Ta-da!

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** I will-er, I did. It was a wedding for a family member, so it wasn't to terrible. But I'm really sensitive to loud noises, and the party was so loud that I had to go up to the hotel room. At least I got to watch The Flash on Netflix.

 **EclipseWolf583:** Let's just say that Danny has three more allies than he thought that he did.

 **Wolfeather101:** Well, I hope that this chapter satisfies you.

 **I just want to say that the Ectofire Arc is freaking** ** _long_** **. Like, seriously long. I just uploaded part** ** _six_** **on Wattpad and there's still one more to go after that. But hopefully it's all worth it.**

 **Minor amounts of blood. Just a little bit. But there is going to be icky stuff in the next few chapters, so be warned.**

Dipper groaned and smacked his head against the desk. He was one hundred percent _done_ with being in school, being in Piedmont, being anywhere except for Gravity Falls.

Mabel was equally frustrated with the fact that they were trapped in California especially when the Guys in White were after their friend. Sure, Danny could (mostly) take care of himself, and he had Wendy, Ford, and an entire police force of magical creatures to help him, but that didn't mean they could stand up to the US government, even if they had probably been bought by a corrupt billionaires.

Even if they might have been able to erase their memories like they had with Powers and Trigger (what agency did they even work for, anyways?), it would be easy for them to get re-triggered and remember everything just by turning on the news.

At the desk next to him, Mabel raised her hand. Mr. Matthews (yes, it was him again) stopped talking and blinked at her. "Yes, Miss Pines?"

"When are we gonna learn about _good_ stuff?" She groaned. "Fun stuff. Like how unicorns are jerks! And what to do when you see a pixie and you don't have any shiny stuff on you. Not boring, gross humanities stuff."

Mr. Matthews rolled his eyes. "Miss Pines, unless you have something meaningful to add to this lesson, you can stay after class."

Mabel beamed, obviously confusing him. "Okay! Come on, Dipper."

She grabbed her brother's arm and pulled him out of the classroom, walking right past Mr. Matthews and the other students as if they weren't even there.

"Where are you two-"

The door swung shut behind them before their teacher could finish his surprised exclamation.

Mabel turned to her brother. "We have to get out of here. Something's wrong."

Dipper nodded in agreement. He could feel it too, something in the air that made you want to scream and cry and _burn._ Something big was coming.

And they needed to get to Gravity Falls.

.

.

Danny sped through the air at top speed, the rest of the world zooming past in a blur of motion.

Flight was his favorite power for a reason, and that reason was absolute freedom.

He paused in the air above the town, remembering to go invisible at the last minute. While most permanent residents were more than used to seeing strange things (especially once Wendy's police force had gained more traction with the town) there were still tourists and out-of-towners that had never even seen a gnome before.

And with the Guys in White looking for him... It just didn't hurt to be safe rather than sorry.

He dove down and slipped intangibly through several people's bodies, stopping beside a familiar face.

"Boo," he whispered in Wendy's ear.

The girl jumped a bit into the air, swinging around a hand that she only realized was empty of a weapon at the last minute.

She settled for lightly smacking the air where her friend was.

"Danny! Don't scare me like that! I'm too young to have a heart attack!"

Danny smiled even though she couldn't see it. "Really? I thought that you were going to make some sort of pun about me being dead and the pot calling the kettle black, but I guess not."

"Puns are more Mabel's thing," the lumberjack said with a shrug and a small smile. "Speaking of Mabel, guess which twins managed to convince their parents that they had a logical reason for coming up here in a stolen car that doesn't have to do with exposing your identity and are now on their way here?"

Danny grinned even wider and dropped out of invisibility.

"They're coming back?" He asked hopefully.

"Yup. They aren't just going to leave you-"

Wendy was abruptly cut off when Candy sprinted down the street and practically fell into her.

The young teen was chattering in rapid-fire Korean, which neither Danny nor Wendy knew how to understand.

Wendy lightly set a hand on Candy's shoulder. "Whoa, soldier. Slow down. What's going on?"

Candy took a deep breath and started over. "The agents, the ones you warned us about, are here. There's a big group over by the bus stop, and they all have fancy white cars except for one. That one is this big silver, white, and green van with a logo on it."

Danny froze. _They're here. The agents are here Maddie and Jack are here they've come for me I put everyone in danger-_

Wendy growled. "Thanks, Candy. Go alert the others." She turned to Danny. "Get back to the Shack as fast as you can. I'll catch up soon, but I need to see how far away the twins are."

Danny didn't need any more urging, and he took off in the direction of his house.

The ghost boy zigzagged through the air, trying not to look out over the forest at where the people who gave birth to him and put him on earth were plotting his destruction.

When he landed at the Shack, the vending machine door was open. Danny ducked behind it and pulled it shut behind him, sliding down through the floors until he got to the bottom layer where Ford was.

The man was waiting for him.

"Grenda told me. She also took all of the peanut butter, so we're going to have to get more when this is over."

Danny nodded and backed up into a corner, tucking his legs up into his body and making himself as small as was physically possible.

"They're here," he mumbled. "I knew that they were coming and now they're here what do I do they've come for me I'm their son I'm their son I'm their son."

It wasn't very long until the elevator lowered itself down to them-they already knew who the passengers were due to the outside cameras.

Dipper went over to help Ford reassemble some sort of futuristic gun. Mabel tried to lure Danny out of the corner. Wendy paced back and forth and smacked the handle of her ax against her palm.

And in the town, people were being questioned.

.

.

To the everlasting credit of the townsfolk of Gravity Falls, they did not say a word of Danny's location.

Whether they recognized him from when he helped everyone to rebuild the town, assisted in rescuing their leader from a spider-woman, when he went to the diner with Wendy and flinched if you brought a knife to close to his body, they just _knew_ that he had been through something awful.

And that these people were most likely the cause.

Unfortunately, tourists (and the Northwest family discounting Pacifica) aren't always so intelligent. Especially ones that were very scared of the frightening looking guns attached to the weird van parked with the other cars that could be more associated with money.

So they happily pointed them in the direction of the building formerly known as the Mystery Shack.

.

.

The agents broke in at the worst possible time.

Mabel had gotten hungry, so she and her brother both carefully ventured upstairs to find something to eat. After discovering that they were out of peanut butter Mabel gave up on sandwiches and decided to grab some of her special Mabel Juice instead.

Until the man in the white suit smashed through the door and grabbed her and her brother before they could escape.

Down below in the basement, Danny heard a shout. He looked up and stiffened.

Someone was there. With the twins. Hurting them.

Hurting his little brother and his little sister.

The next minute, all three of them were on the main floor.

The first man was easy to beat. Ford and Wendy kicked his ass while Danny made sure that the two thirteen year olds were okay.

When he was satisfied, he grabbed a hold of their upper arms and tried to go invisible-only for electricity to arc through his body.

A woman- _Agent W Agent W Agent W Agent W-_ grinned at him as the white rings formed around his waist and he fell to the ground.

 _Plasmius Maximus. But how did they...?_

Agent W pushed something into his face-and then his veins were on fire.

A red haze filled his vision, and all that Danny knew was pain. Oh, it hurt. It hurt so bad. It felt like his bones were ripping apart at the seams and his skin was peeling away like an onion.

Thick liquid clogged his throat, and he tried to spit it out. But that only made it worse.

Then... Darkness.

The last thing that he heard was Mabel's scream of fear.


	16. Ectofire (Part Four)

**Jessica Jayme Bell:** Yep.

 **Wolfeather101:** Well, I hope that this chapter satisfies your burning. Or it might just make it worse. Who knows.

 **And now I attempt to do something that most people refer to as "building suspense." But it just feels more like wild floundering in an attempt to build something that resembles a plotline in this mess of chapters. Although it's going to happen soon, I swear!**

Danny came to when a small hand, one that was far too tiny and gentle to belong to any of the agents, shook his shoulder.

He cracked his eyes open into a squint and groaned in pain.

Long hair tickled his face.

"Danny? Are you okay? I mean, no, you aren't, but it's a standard question." The speaker was young and female.

Danny hissed when a bolt of agony went down through his body. "Whe..."

His mouth was too dry to form proper words, and the shadow of the person with him leaned back.

"I don't have any water. And I don't know where we are, either. I only woke up a few minutes ago."

Danny tried to sit up, but something was holding him to the ground. It burned.

"They've got you chained and me in handcuffs," the girl explained, pushing against the cuff around one of her wrists and securing her to the wall as if to demonstrate.

"Why?" Danny whispered. "Why didn't they leave you? You don't deserve this."

Mabel looked at him sadly. "And you do?"

.

.

Dipper's feet pounded against the ground, his heart pounding. The thirteen year old was panting, trying desperately to outrun the six agents on his tail.

He heard a loud _bang,_ and a bullet send bark spraying from one of the trees in front of him. Dipper dodged, feet slipping out from under him and sending the boy tumbling down into a ditch.

He lay there for a moment and tried to suck the air back into his winded lungs. An agent peered down at him and lifted his gun.

"Goodbye. We don't need any more leverage."

 _Mabel. He was talking about Mabel._

Dipper rolled to the side and started to run again, his chest and legs burning with exertion.

 _Please. Please let Mabel be okay._

There was a loud snarl, and that was the only warning that Dipper got before a bright red dragon crashed through the undergrowth ahead of him.

It pushed the young teen behind him and reared up back onto its haunches. "Go," it snarled. "Consider it a favor from Lady Wendy."

Dipper smiled gratefully as Rusty roared and spat orange flame at the Guys in White.

He kept running until he came to a familiar tree. Then he doubled over with his hands on his knees and panted for breath.

More footsteps sounded through the trees coming towards him, and Dipper whipped around. The agents couldn't have followed him-Rusty had made sure of that. Who else was here? Dipper crouched down and got ready to start sprinting again.

That is, until Wendy and Ford crashed in through opposite ends of the clearing.

They were both panting, and Wendy was lacking her usual flannel outershirt and there was a bloody gash in Ford's upper right arm, but other than that they were mostly unharmed.

Dipper sighed with relief before his eyes widened. "Where's Mabel?" He rounded on Ford. "You said that you were going after her!"

Ford winced. "I was. But they grabbed her and Danny and put them both in that weird van. I couldn't..."

Dipper stumbled back and felt his legs give out from under him and let his knees press into the wet leaves. Mabel... Mabel was gone. His sister was gone.

He needed to get her back.

Ford picked a large heavy branch off of the ground, and then threw it into the air. The bough struck a tree limb that was slightly different than the rest, making the whole trunk rumble and lower. Both Dipper and Wendy suddenly remembered where they had seen the tree before.

As it lowered and the stairs ticked out off into the darkness, Dipper remembered the nightmare of what happened last time.

Then he exchanged a glance with Wendy, squared his still rather scrawny shoulders, and marched down into the dusty blackness of the bunker.

.

.

Mabel looked around at the pure white walls of the cell. There was no color here, just bright snowy paint and clothes.

She decided that she hated pure white.

Danny was leaned against the wall across from her, a small tickle of green and red blood dripping down from his forehead. It didn't seem to be hurting him too much, but there were other more serious wounds decorating the rest of his body.

The only injuries that she had sustained were bruises, a scratch along her leg, a black eye, a goose egg on the back of her head, and a wounded pride.

Mabel coughed and tried to position herself so that her arm wasn't wrenched above her head. She had lost her grappling hook at the Shack-escape was going to be much harder without it. The thirteen year old reached up with her free hand and pulled a bobby pin out of her long hair.

She sent a shaky smile towards Danny. "I know how to pick locks."

The ghost boy looked at her with dull blue eyes and silently nodded.

Mabel frowned. She was about to ask if he was alright, if the agents had done anything that he hadn't told her-when the door opened.

A man and a woman walked in, dressed in some pretty weird outfits. The man was dressed entirely in an orange hazmat suit, and the woman wore a teal smaller version of something similar. There were weapons attached to their waists, and most of them had the man's face on them somewhere.

The two crouched down in front of Mabel as Danny shied away with a small whimper.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" The woman asked her. "We told the agents not to bring anybody but the ghost scum, but then they came back with you. Don't worry, pretty soon you'll be back with your family and safe at home. I'm sure that your parents are very worried by now."

Mabel narrowed her eyes for a moment before letting a sweet smile cross her face as she batted wide brown puppy dog eyes.

"Thank you." Mabel tried to make her voice sound scared but still comforted. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Of course, honey. I'm Maddie, and this is Jack," the woman gestured to herself and to the man next to her.

Mabel couldn't stifle a small gasp of surprise, but managed to turn it into a cough. "Can you get me some water?" She squeaked. "I'm really thirsty."

Maddie patted her head condescendingly. "Alright. Be right back."

She sent a meaningful look to Jack and left. The man crossed his arms.

"Do you want to hear me blather on about ghosts?" He asked Mabel.

The young teen blinked and made eye contact with Danny.

 _Distract him._

"Sure!" Mabel chirped. "I didn't even know ghosts were real."

Jack brightened and began to talk loudly, lecturing her about how ghosts were unfeeling monsters who only existed to cause pain.

Mabel saw Danny wince.

After Maddie returned with the water and gave it to Mabel, the woman smiled and pulled out some kind of bo staff/lightsaber combo.

"Good. Now Jack, grab the ghost and let's get started."

Mabel gasped. "What?"

Jack nodded and pulled out a key, unlocking Danny's bonds and grabbing him around the neck.

The ghost boy started to thrash and he tried to gather ectoenergy in his hands. But it didn't work-the Plasmius Maximus had yet to stop affecting him.

Maddie sighed and hit him in the ribs with her staff. The teenager cried out in pain.

Mabel whimpered and pulled her knees up to her chest.

She watched as they dragged their son away and let a few tears stream down her cheeks.

.

.

Ford kept one hand on his gun, looking around at every shadow like it was going to attack him.

Dipper had told him that the shapeshifter was contained, but that didn't stop him from worrying.

Wendy picked something. "Guys, this can was opened recently. Not shapeshifter recently, but really recently. Someone... Someone is down here."

Dipper nodded and clutched the magnet gun that Ford had given him tighter.

Something clanged down off into the darkness, and the three raised their respective weapons threateningly.

"Who's there?" Ford shouted down the hall.

Someone fell down onto the ground in front of them.

"Don't shoot!" They yelped.

Dipper peered down at him in surprise. "Old man McGucket?"

Ford nearly dropped his gun. _"Fiddleford?!"_


	17. Ectofire (Part Five)

**The Keeper of Worlds:** Yes, yes it is.

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** In a good way or a bad way?

 **Wolfeather101:** I come bringing more.

 **EclipseWolf583:** _Nobody_ touches Stan's kids. _Nobody._

 **Let the mediocre chapter commence!**

Mabel leaned back against the white wall as she waited for Danny to return. The thirteen year old girl had long since picked the lock (being related to a conman had it's advantages, including learning how to cheat at cards and escape from a holding cell), and was now hoping against all hope that her friend would return safe and unharmed.

When the door opened, Mabel immediately shoved her hand back into the cuff to give the illusion that she was still bound.

A random agent was standing in the doorway, one hand wrapped around Danny's throat. Mabel let out a small sob at the sight of him.

The agent threw him forward with a heavy shove that sent the ghost boy sprawling onto the floor. Mabel waited in her corner for as long as she dared before throwing herself towards him to assess the damage.

A severe burn ringed his wrist, and there were matching ones on his ankles. There were three jagged bloody slash marks engraved deeply into his flesh, the area around them scorched and irritated.

But the worst injury was the one on his lower ribs, just above his stomach.

There was a small, neat cut that was slowly dripping with red and green blood. The edges of it were sprinkled with tiny bright red and dark purple flakes. Whatever they were, they were making the skin bubble up and blister-obviously making Danny feel immense amounts of pain.

Mabel leaned over him and whispered in his ear, "What's the red-purple stuff on your stomach? How do I get rid off it?"

Danny's entire body spasmed briefly before he answered.

"Blood... Blossoms." He rasped. "You have to... Get them away. Hurts..."

Mabel winced. She had no other option, did she?

With a small sound of regret, the girl began to brush the flecks off of his skin. They stuck to her fingers along with the blood-as well as probably hurting like hell, but once they were all off Danny breathed a small sigh of relief.

"I'm glad... That they didn't dissect me... Again."

"Me too," Mabel murmured, patting Danny's jet black hair.

 _Please hurry, Dipper._

 _._

 _._

McGucket jumped back. "Now how do you know my name? And what do you think you're doing down here? This is _my_ hiding spot for the apocalypse."

Wendy crouched down to his level to make herself less threatening.

"Whoa, buddy. The apocalypse has been over for, like, months. The crisis was averted."

"Then how come you're down here?" The old man asked suspiciously.

"Something... Happened," Dipper said. "We have to hide down here."

McGucket looked at him with narrowed eyes. "How do I know you aren't the shapeshifter?"

Dipper smiled at him, mildly pleased that he remembered the shapeshifter.

"Um, here." He picked up a piece of glass and carefully pricked his finger, showing McGucket the color of the blood. "See? Red, not green. I'm a human."

"So you are." McGucket scuttled backwards into the rest of the bunker before anything else could be said.

Ford stared after him. His old friend was... Gone. He knew about The Society of the Blind Eye, knew that Fiddleford had been the one to start it, knew that he had forgotten. But Ford himself hadn't.

He wouldn't forget the day that he drove his best friend to insanity.

Never.

.

.

Danny curled up into himself, eyes blue squeezed shut. His powers were still unreachable-the agents must have modified the Plasmius Maximus somehow.

It had been much longer than it had ever been before.

Mabel had ripped up her sweater for use as a makeshift bandage. Usually she would be mourning the time and craftsmanship that had been poured into the garment, but now was not the time to grieve over a sweater. She had to take care of her friend.

The thirteen year old girl had started to regale the ghost boy with some of the stories that he hadn't heard yet-like how she had punched the doctor when she was only a few seconds old. Or how Dipper had had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

Mabel told him about the time that they fell into the bottomless pit (actually a wormhole into what was most likely the fourth dimension, at least according to Dipper), the day that she and Pacifica waged war on each other and fought golf people, and when she got lost in the woods with only her yarn and knitting needles for company.

Anything to distract him from where they were and what was going on.

.

.

Unbeknownst to them, something (or more accurately _three_ some _ones_ ) was wreaking havoc on the agents.

Every single weapon in the place that even partially relied on electricity collapsed and fell apart. The plants in the building went haywire, attacking the agents and tying them to the walls. Agents J and E both started acting strangely-nobody seemed to notice that they were the only ones not wearing Specter Deflectors.

Blue balls of fire would chase interns down the hallway. A grey shape would often be seen following the Fentons. Whenever they turned around, it was gone.

The ones who saw it swore that it was the shape of a man.

.

.

In the town of Gravity Falls, a rich girl with blond hair talked on the phone with a teenager who was raised by lumberjacks. A boy who was desperate for his sister carefully climbed out from a hidden door at the base of a fake metal tree. He was followed by a fallen genius, half of a dynamic duo, and his older friend who ran the only truly efficient police force in town.

Across the forest, a creature that might have been a bear clambered out of his cave in response to a call to action from the scarlet-scaled dragon that was perched outside of it.

In the town itself, two girls whispered plans to each other in Korean and English.

Beside a bramble thicket, a trio of pixies discussed their next move.

Because they knew where their friends had been taken, and they knew how to get them back.

It was time to raise brimstone and rain destruction upon those who had robbed them.

It was time to fight back.

It was time for the Guys in White to fall.


	18. Ectofire (Part Six)

**I may have joined a new fandom... It was an accident, I swear! But now I want to write ALL THE FANFICS.**

 **EclipseWolf583:** No. They're dead, and necromancy has rules and repercussions. And when I finally update Burning Brands and Rose Thorns, Jazz will be in it.

 **Wolfeather101:** Glad you think so!

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** What do you think Mayor Tyler's battle cry will be?

 **The Keeper of Worlds:** Yeah, they messed with the _wrong_ Halfa.

 **There is one scene in particular that seems more disjointed than the rest. But you'll find out what happened there in a later chapter, because it** ** _will_** **have an affect on the rest of the story.**

 **Minor gore, but it gets pretty icky in the next chapter. I'll post a second warning there.**

Danny lay on the cold ground of the cell, shivering. His cold core wasn't helping him at the moment-had the Plasmius Maximus done something to that too as a part of removing his powers?

Mabel was shivering too. Her sweater was still being used as bandages, and her shirt was thin. But she didn't want to complain. Her friend was going to be experimented on, and she was too cold. It wasn't a very nice thing to say to someone in this situation.

The door opened, and Maddie strode in with purpose. She grabbed Danny and hauled him to his feet, inspecting the shreds of sweater tied around the wounds. Too late, Mabel realized that she had forgotten to hide the fact that she had picked the lock.

Maddie sighed and shook her head at Mabel. "Sweetie, why did you help him? It's just a ghost-it doesn't feel any pain."

Mabel had to physically restrain herself from punching the older woman in the face. Instead, the girl bit the inside of her cheek and thought every swear word that she knew directly at her.

The ghost hunter frowned and shook her son severely. Danny's body was limp, and his head lolled as his mother jolted him and sent fiery bolts of pain slicing through his wounds.

Mabel bit her cheek harder and tasted the metallic tang of blood.

Maddie smiled at Mabel even as she injured her friend even further. It made the girl feel sick to her stomach.

"Goodbye, Mabel," she said kindly. "I'm very sorry for anything that might happen to you."

"Wait, wha-" Mabel began, springing to her feet with a cry of dismay and fear. But Maddie was already gone, and she had taken Danny away with her.

The ghost boy started to thrash and kick, trying to bite at the blue hazmat-covered hand that held him. It was no use, however, and the woman reacted to his efforts with a powerful blow to his ribs that left him gasping for breath.

She dragged him off down the hallway and then threw him into a side room. And it wasn't one that he had ever been in before.

Like all of the others, it was pure white. There was a metal table in the center _(no no no no no please)_ with the familiar _(awful awful awful pain)_ restraints. But there were none of the tools that he knew were used for the vivisections on any of the side tables.

Just ominous looking needles and something that looked like a gun.

 _No no no no no no please please please I'm your son you can' e._

An Agent-H-pinned him down to the table and restrained him face down on the table. Danny tried to move and found that one of the belts was now wrapped around his waist.

What were they going to do to him?

There was a buzzing sound, and Danny's fear spiked.

"Begin," Maddie said in a monotone voice.

That was when the pain started, and Danny screamed himself hoarse.

.

.

A large shape of bright red dropped down from the sky outside of an unmarked white and grey building. A blur of multicolored light and motion that sounded like a thousand hummingbirds followed it into a bush. Another blob-this one blue and not red-dropped down from the clouds to land in a grove of maple and oak trees.

Something jumped down off of the red beast's back and patted the tall curve of its scaly neck.

"Thanks, Rusty." Wendy smiled grimly. "Alright guys, this is the place."

Dipper and Ford hopped down beside her. Wendy had an ax as well as one of Ford's spare guns, Ford himself had his own energy gun, and Dipper was clutching a magnet gun.

From out of the trees behind the three, Sardonyx's crew stepped off. (Sardonyx was far, _far_ larger than Rusty was or would most likely ever be.)

Grenda smacked a baseball bat against her hand. Candy waved a long knife the size of Wendy's forearm. Lazy Susan tapped her own bat on the ground. Pacifica nervously rubbed her arm, achingly conscious of the spear strapped to her back. Manly Dan ran his thumb along the edge of his ax. Tyler looked unusually warlike, and for some reason was carrying a mace.

The pixie swarm rose from their position. The Multibear lumbered from the trees. Jessabelle whinnied and scraped the ground with her hoof. A woman with with the lower body of a python hissed and bared her long venomous fangs.

Wendy puffed herself up to her full height and cupped her hands around her mouth.

"Alright everyone!" She shouted. "Is everyone clear on the plan?"

"What plan?" Dipper hissed into Candy's ear, making the Korean girl giggle. Unfortunately, he wasn't kidding.

The assembled creatures and humans (well, except for Dipper) made shouts, howls, roars, and screeches of assent.

Wendy grinned savagely as she turned to face the accursed building where her friends had been captured by sadists. She looked at Tyler.

"Mr. Mayor? Any words of encouragement?"

He grinned and shouted a battle cry.

"Get 'em! Get 'em!"

And with that, they charged.

Rusty and Sardonyx easily ran out front in the lead, long scaled legs carrying them easily. But despite the fact that there were plenty of other beings behind them that were far faster, it was Dipper, Wendy, and Ford who were right on their heels.

It was _their_ family that was trapped in there. _Their_ family that was currently being tortured, injured, hurt. _Their_ family that they were going to get back.

.

.

Danny whimpered in pain as Mabel brushed the blood blossom petal flakes off of the newly-inflicted wound. He still didn't know what they had done to his back, but after that specific pain was over a new test had begun.

The girl jumped back when he gave a particularly violent flinch. "Sorry!"

"It's fine," he hissed through gritted teeth. "Just get the rest of it _off."_

Mabel did as he asked. She didn't say a thing about what Maddie had said.

An explosion shook the building.

Mabel stood up and pushed Danny back up against the wall. She stood in front of him protectively as the door burst open.

Four agents streamed in single-file, two grabbing each teenager.

Mabel tried to sink her teeth into the arm of the man holding her, but instead got smacked sharply in the face.

The worst bit was that Danny wasn't fighting at all.

A low growl echoed through the still shaking building, and the agents holding Mabel took off down the hallway to the right.

But the agents with Danny went left.

She screamed in fear-and blue fire exploded against the backs of the two agents.

Their white suits burst in azure flames, and they shouted. Mabel did too, even as she was dropped to the ground. Her ankle twisted painfully, but it obviously wasn't broken.

"MABEL!" Someone shouted loudly.

She straightened and looked back at the agents. A ring of fire had encircled the two men, but... It wasn't coming any closer to her. In fact, it actually _avoided_ her.

Something-or some _one-_ was controlling it.

And they didn't want to hurt her.

For a moment, something touched her hand and helped her to her feet as a long green vine joined the flames and tied the agents together.

"Stay safe, kiddo. Go save your friend."

Mabel laughed. There were a few tears mixed in too, but that was okay.

She turned to face the direction that the voice came from. "Dipper! I'm over here!"

Then she was wrapped up in the best hug ever, and ignored the confused look that Dipper sent to the two agents.

Mabel gave her twin brother one last squeeze before taking off.

"C'mon!" She shouted over her shoulder. "We have to find Danny!"

.

.

Ford narrowed his brown eyes at the man in front of him. The barrel of his energy gun was pointed at the agent's chest.

Was he an agent? He wasn't wearing white.

"You are going to tell me where Danny Phantom is," he said slowly. "Or I will shoot you."

The man-how did someone even get to be that big?-glared at him.

"Phantom is somewhere we you can't get to him. It's our experiment. _You_ can't have it." He sounded like a child who didn't want to share his favorite toy.

Ford sighed. "I'm not sorry about this."

He shot the man point-blank in his orange and black chest. He went down like a bag of rocks.

A scream ripped through the air, and Ford took off. Wendy met him from down a side hall and ran beside him.

"That was Danny," she panted. "Dipper got Mabel, she's okay."

Ford nodded, relieved. His great-niece was safe. Now they had to focus on saving Danny.

Saving the source of that scream.

.

.

Danny screeched and struggled as his body was enveloped in a red cloud of glowing light. Someone made an angry sound and then-

Fire. Fire. His body was on fire.

The knife in his chest... It was coated with a mix of ectoradium and blood blossom extract.

His nerves were in agony.

A hand pressed against his throat and cut off his screaming.

"Shut up, you little bitch," the agent spat into his ear. "Or I'll make you."

 _"Get away from him!"_ Someone new snarled, and then the pressure on his windpipe was gone.

But there was still so. Much. Pain.

"Danny!"

The Halfa coughed up blood. His internal organs were starting to shut down.

There were hands on his ribs, and he flinched away. Why couldn't they let him die in peace? Why did they have to add insult to injury? Torture him beyond his death?

"Danny, it's okay. We're not going to hurt you."

The blood blossoms were gone. Who took them?

If they were gone, why did everything still hurt?

Why did he still want to die?

"Listen to me, Danny. I need you to breathe. I can't help you unless you breathe."

He knew who was talking, didn't he?

"Oh, shit," somebody else said-female, Danny noted absently.

There was a girl crying nearby, and he tried to tell her that it was okay.

It didn't hurt very much anymore.

Everything was turning grey and fuzzy. Danny closed his eyes. He was so tired, and the blackness was so inviting...

"Danny! Danny, you _have_ to stay awake. Do you hear me? You have to stay-"


	19. Ectofire (Part Seven)

**Wow! So many of you reviewed!**

 **EclipseWolf583:** It's okay, you don't have to apologize for swearing. Don't worry, Danny will make it-mostly. Gonna be hard to shake off the physical and psychological trauma, though. I am actually thinking about making that the pairing, but it would be at the end of the fic and more of an implied thing.

 **The Keeper of Worlds:** It should scare you.

 **unique is cool:** Why thank you! *does elegant bow*

 **Jessica Jayme Bell:** Don't worry. He'll be... Mostly okay.

 **Wolfeather101:** The feels are real and THEY'RE IN YOUR FACE.

 **:** Because I'm evil and I can never back down from a dare.

 **gamergurl123:** Thank you!

 **Guest (the first one):** Thanks. I'm not really sure what you mean by that, but I'll do my best! The magic thing, I mean. The useless part I am working to rectify in future (unwritten) chapters.

 **Mimi1012:** Cliffhanger is my middle name. Well, no. But I wish that it was.

 **Guest (the second one):** I do love a good suspenseful cliffhanger.

 **mymag99:** He should be... Uh, okay-ish.

 **The reason why I haven't updated is purely for suspense purposes. Big news: I can now do proper** **line breaks!**

 **I am currently doing NaNoWriMo, where my goal is 30,000 words at a minimum. But I think that I can do it, and my plot will hopefully work out. It's a** **superhero murder mystery, and the main character (as well as the "hero" of the story) is a villain!**

 **Prepare for a mega chapter for all your waiting efforts!**

 _Danny hurts._

 _He can't even tell if he's awake or asleep. Just that everything hurts._

 _Everything is red and grey and black and white and green._

 _Everything is spinning._

 _People are trying to talk to him._

"Danny, please. Please wake up. You have to wake up."

"You're going to be okay. I promise."

"I'm so, so sorry."

"Can you even hear me?"

 _Danny. His name is Danny._

 _Danny Fenton Phantom Fenton Phantom Fenton Phantom Phantom Pines._

 _And he's dying._

 _It hurts even more the second time around, or at least he thinks so. There's none of the sharp branching pain that comes with electrocution, but his body-specifically his chest-is in agony._

 _Vaguely, Danny is aware of someone standing above him and carefully setting him down on something soft and nice. A bed._

 _He tries to thank them and instead ends up coughing up blood onto the sheets. Whoever put him on the bed brushes the hair out off of his clammy forehead and then leaves._

 _No._

 _No, please. Don't leave me here alone._

 _Danny almost screams but finds out that he can't._

 _He passes out again._

* * *

 _There are little snatches of wakefulness interspersed with the dreams-nightmares-memories._

 _People next to him discussing how to get whatever it is that hurts so much out of his chest. The act of breaking a part of it off, which makes him scream and cry and beg for the pain to end._

 _A man passed out on the floor next to him, soon replaced by two blobs of brown hair and what looks like a pink sweater._

 _Fiery lances of pain that stab into his flesh._

* * *

Wendy frowned at Ford. "You're sure that this is the only way?"

"No, I'm not," he admitted. "But it's the fastest one, and we have to get that out of him _now."_

Mabel stirred sleepily from where she was passed out on the sofa. Dipper had wrapped himself around her protectively. Nobody was going to take away his sister and hurt her ever again, not while he was alive.

"Wass goin' on," she slurred.

"Nothing, Mabel. Go back to sleep." Wendy tossed a blanket over the young twins.

"M'kay," the thirteen year old girl muttered, closing her eyes again and immediately falling back to sleep without another sound.

The redheaded teen turned back around to face Ford. "But you're sure that it will work?"

Ford sighed and put his hands on her shoulders before looking the lumberjack girl in the eye.

"No. I'm not certain that it will work, but I don't know what other options we have. If we had time, we could figure out something else. But we don't. And if we leave that blade in, Danny _will_ die."

Wendy gritted her teeth. "Then let's do it."

* * *

Wendy wrapped the old belt around the bedpost, securing it around her friend's thin wrist.

"Is this really necessary?" She asked, moving on to the other arm with the second belt.

"Unless you want him to hurt himself trying to get away, then yes," Ford answered.

"Get away?"

"I don't have enough anesthetic for him," Ford said, looking at the floor as he looped the strip of leather around Danny's ankle. The delirious ghost boy twitched at the touch. "And it won't do very much. We're going to trigger a flashback, and I don't want him to get any more injured when it happens."

The teenager sighed-although it was more like a soft growl-and leaned back to admire her handiwork. "I hope that it doesn't come down to that."

"It will," Ford said quietly. Wendy still heard him.

Pulling out a pair of scissors, she cut away the white bandage around Danny's chest. Because of her police force of the supernatural and paranormal creatures that haunted the forest, it hadn't taken them too long to find something willing to break the kife. The end of the blade was still buried in his skin-but the handle and the base had been snapped cleanly off.

The area around the exact wound itself looked like it had been burned away, and it bubbled and blistered with pus. Blood was no longer gushing, but it was still right there at the surface. One wrong move and it would all come spilling out again. The veins around it were a sickening purple, the blood blossoms slowly poisoning his bloodstream.

Wendy couldn't imagine the amount of pain that her friend must have been in.

She looked at Ford nervously. The girl wasn't squeamish by any means, but _this_ was a few steps too far in the wrong direction.

"Do I really have to...?"

The man finished injecting the anaesthetic and shook his head.

"I can do it if you want."

Wendy gulped and nodded. She knew that she would have messed up somehow and probably hurt Danny even more.

Ford leaned over the Halfa and nodded to her. "Get ready."

The man reached down and carefully pulled out the glowing red and green blade. It was so slicked with Danny's peculiar blood that Wendy couldn't tell where the actual knife blade began and ended.

As he pulled the poisoned knife out, Danny screamed. His now-glowing green eyes snapped open, and he yanked against the restraints in a desperate effort to free himself.

Wendy was suddenly glad that he was too out of it to think of using his intagibility.

Danny was shaking, blood dripping down his ribs onto his chest in waves of red and green. He was babbling an incomprehensible stream of words, among which Ford caught "please please please stop please" and "I'm your son I swear please stop you have to stop I'm your son your son your son."

Danny thought that they were his parents. That he was still with the Guys in White. Still a prisoner, a subject, an _experiment._

He slowly held out one of his hands, as if he were approaching a wounded and scared animal. Wendy hovered behind him with the bandages in her hands. Danny shied away from his hand nervously, as much as he could while he was strapped to the bed. The Halfa winced when his back rubbed against the sheets, and Ford remembered what was on Danny's back.

He hadn't gotten a very good look at it so far, but he at least had a good idea of what it was.

It made him feel sick that someone could do that to a child-to anyone, really. Powers or not, they were still a person.

"Please," Danny mumbled. "I can't-please please stop please I don't want _-please."_

"It's alright," Ford said softly. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you anymore. We just have to bandage you back up again."

Wendy crouched down and made herself look nonthreatening. "Look, I just have to wrap this around you a few times."

The blood and ectoplasm was staining the sheets red and green now, being absorbed by the white cloth. The internal damage was impossible for him to assess at the moment.

And if Danny lost any more blood...

To make matters worse, there was a pattering of footsteps outside of the room, and Mabel and Dipper poked their heads in.

"What's going-" Dipper broke off and stared at the shaking ghost boy. "What are you doing?!"

"You're hurting him!" Mabel exclaimed. She rushed forward, only to skid to a halt when Danny yelped and tried to throw himself against the wall.

Ford held up his hands. "It's necessary. We got the blade out, but we still have to bandage the wound. If we had left it in any longer," he added, seeing the still-angry look on the twin's faces. "He would have died."

Dipper and Mabel deflated.

"Oh," they said in small voices.

Mabel looked at the bandages in Wendy's hand. "Can I try?" She asked shyly. "I'm smaller than you, and he might let me..."

The older girl nodded and handed them to her. "Here you go. Good luck."

The thirteen year old carefully crept up to the side of the bed.

"Hey, Danny," she said gently. "I'm just gonna put this on you, okay? I won't hurt you, I promise. Is that okay with you?"

He just stared up at her and didn't blink. Although he didn't move at all, so Mabel took it as a good sign.

She slowly reached down and started to wrap the bandages around his ribs, stopping whenever Danny flinched away. Ford had to admire her patience-in his personal experience, Mabel tended to have attention problems at the best of times.

When she was finished, Mabel leaned back. "There!" She said cheerfully. "All done!"

Danny tugged at the restraints around his wrists and ankles before giving her a frantic look.

Mabel looked at her great uncle and honorary cool older sister for confirmation, ignoring her twin brother (who had retreated to the doorway to watch).

Ford nodded. "Go ahead, but be careful."

Mabel undid the ones around Danny's ankles first before moving up to his arms. Throughout it all the Halfa stayed stock-still, tensing whenever she made a too-fast movement.

"Is that better?"

Danny nodded, curled up on the bloody bed, smiled, muttered "thank you," and passed out once again.

* * *

This time when Danny woke up, he _stayed_ up.

Mabel was asleep on the floor next to his bed, wrapped up in an old brown blanket with raggedy edges. The top of Dipper's head just barely stuck out the end of it.

Ford wasn't there. Danny assumed that he was in his own room. At least, that's what he thought until he saw the lump of brown trench coat in the corner leaned up against the wall.

Danny tried to sit up-and immediately fell back down. Black spots danced across his vision, and it felt like someone had filled his chest with sharp rocks. That were also on fire.

Mabel yawned and stirred, blinking blearily up at him with big chocolate eyes. "Danny...?"

"Hi," he whispered.

In a blink, Mabel was on her feet. "You're awake!"

She moved as if to give him a hug before stopping and smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. I forgot."

"What happened?" Danny rasped. "The last thing that I can remember is..."

 _Agents. Fire. Explosions. Pain. Knife. Blood blossoms._

"Are you okay?" He asked the girl. "I saw you get taken away."

"Am _I_ okay?" Mabel shook her head. "You are the one who got stabbed in the chest, mister!"

"Oh." Danny blinked. "Is that why it hurts so much?"

Mabel laughed and threw herself down at the floor of the bed.

"Do I have a story for you..."

* * *

Danny stood unsteadily in front of the tall mirror. Wendy was reflected behind him, and the ghost boy could clearly see the frown on her face.

"You don't have to see it again if you don't want to," Danny reassured her. He had no idea of what the agents and Maddie had done to his back, only that it was bad.

Wendy growled softly. "No, it's not that. I just don't want _you_ to see it, is all."

"It can't be worse than what's already been done to me," the Halfa said.

The older teenager shook her head with a sigh. "Suit yourself."

She knew that Danny was probably going to freak out when he saw it, so she was actually mostly here for damage control.

Danny tugged off his shirt, wincing at the strain in his muscles and the flare of dull pain in his chest. Even the simplest of tasks were accompanied by pain now, while the wound in his chest was still healing.

Wendy held up the scissors and took a step forward. Danny automatically took an equally sized one back, until his back was almost touching the mirror. He still couldn't suppress the panic that flooded through him at the sight of a blade.

"It's fine, look." Wendy snipped the pair of scissors at her shirt sleeve. "I just need to cut off the knot for the bandage."

Danny nodded stiffly but didn't move.

Slowly, Wendy advanced on him and cut the knot off. She had fresh supplies with her, ready for when they needed to be replaced.

Danny faced himself in the mirror. He was skinny-not nearly as starved as he had been last time that he escaped the agents, but still underweight. Old scars and fresh wounds decorated his stomach, ribs, and arms. His black hair needed to be cut, and his eyes were dull but still carrying life.

Looking at Wendy for reassurance, he turned around and craned his neck to look in the mirror.

It was easy to see what they had done.

Three letters, in thick black ink just below his left shoulder blade.

 _GIW._

They'd branded him as theirs.

It took Wendy, Ford, and the twins about an hour to calm him down afterwards.

* * *

"We're staying," Dipper announced. "Mabel and I. We aren't going back to Piedmont."

"Where will you stay?" Wendy asked. "'Cause if you aren't going to be at the Shack than you'll always be welcome at my place."

"Actually," Dipper said. "I was thinking that we could..."

He whispered his plan in Wendy's ear. The teenager whistled. "I like it. So how can I help?"

* * *

The girl sprinted down the street, trying to avoid the missiles and glowing bullets that were currently being fired at her head.

The thing that was following her was a metal man with flaming green hair who was shouting angrily and ranting about his prey. While he was distracted by something on the monitor that was mounted on his arm, the girl ducked into an alleyway.

Her body suddenly disappeared, and the ghost flew right by her before she faded back into visibility.

"Alright, Dani," Danielle Phantom muttered to herself. "Let's go find your cousin."


	20. Recovery (Part One)

**The Keeper of Worlds:** At least two members. One of the three won't want to cause their family/friends any more grief.

 **Wolfeather101:** Well, I hope that you like her in this story.

 **mymag99:** Then I hope that I do her properly! I've never written Dani before, so this was new territory for me.

 **ShinyMudkipGal:** There's this weird thing at the top that I see when I go to the second part of the Doc Manager program. The Edit Document bit? It's at the top near where all of the other commands are-bold, italics, underline, etc. Hope that it helped.

 **EclipseWolf583:** Whoop whoop!

 **allietheepic7:** I would just like you to know how hard I fangirled when I saw your name in the reviews. I _love_ all of the stories that you've written (or at least the ones that I've read, which is most), and I can't believe that you like mine. And Vlad is... Watching. Creepily. Because he's a weird old man who needs another cat.

 **Mimi1012:** Yep, it was Skulker. And I know I'm evil-it's part of what makes me so charming.

 **Nobody:** The only people who like the Guys in White are the Guys in White themselves.

 **Guest:** Is that a good WOWZ?

 **Bill Cipher:** _H̞͕͍͕̹͚ow̮̫̦͞ ̦̼̬͇͇m͇a̧̱͈̩̪y̻̫͙̕ ̮I̖ ̛͙̘͕̯s̜̜̜̳͎e̪ŕ͓̖v̘̗̫e̲͇̭͙ ̺̣̺̗͚̯̰͟y̻ou̱̠͓̻̘͖̖,̷̺̤͖̱ ̣͉̺̪̖̱́ḿ̳̟̩͈y ͈͍͚͈̟l̯̩̠͍̦͇̻͢o̤̗͕͕̘͖̱r͙̯d̲̬̼̠̹͎ ͞a̧̮͚̱͚͍̤ͅn̝̦̰̳̦d҉̪̯ ̡͈ma̤̳s͖͎̺̮͘t̶e͈̟̹͙̮r ̙̱̝f̡̞̤͔ͅơ̻̮̳͇͚̖r̸̫̥̜͉̺̟ ̫͖͖͚̻͎̪͢a̯̗̩͙̞̠ͅl̳̣̹l̶̜͉̼̺̜̘̪ e̘̰͖͎͟ţ̠͉̲͍̥̩e̛̱̘͚r͔̦̻̼̖n͈̥i̠t͍̗y̳̦̗̖͙̖̠?̜͇͜ͅ_

 **Here's the next chapter! And I hope that this explains some things about what happened at the Guys in White facility.**

Wendy jumped down from the trees, twirling her ax with finality. "Ta-da! Took us the better part of two months, but it's finally almost done!"

Mabel grinned. "So can we come up there now?"

"Be my guest," the lumberjack sang from where she was perched on a thick red cedar branch.

The two thirteen year olds beamed at each other and scrambled up the ladder slats that one of Wendy's younger brothers had nailed into the side of one of the tall trees. Mabel went first, overly-large yellow sweater sleeves flopping around. Dipper clambered up behind her with a bit more tact.

Over the course of around two months, the Corduroy clan had worked together to make a trio of house-like structures in a stand of trees not too far from the Mystery Shack. They were connected by rope ladders strung lengthwise across the canopy-basically just three connected tree houses.

They had yet to be furnished with anything other than a small rug, similar to the kind that you would put in a bathroom to soak up water. There were still nails that needed to be fully hammered in, boards that needed to be sanded. The rope bridges were precarious and easy to fall from.

And Mabel thought that it was perfect.

There were little nocks in the trees where she could brace her legs and jump off, perfect crannies for her grappling hook to attach to, long twigs where she could scramble and climb and look at the stars with Danny, Dipper, and Wendy. She could find her favorite constellations-the Big Dipper, obviously, Orion the Hunter, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda-and make Dipper tell her nerd facts about each of them.

There were plenty of dangers for the trio of treehouses. Plus spiders, bats, the occasional unisquirrel, and all of the other fantastic and normal creatures that roamed the forest of Gravity Falls. There would need to be humane traps, wards, all sorts of magical protection for them.

But Dipper still thought that it was perfect.

Wendy had shown him a desk that her dad had built. It had yet to be moved to the main house, but it was already completely made. It was the perfect spot for studying, writing, and doing all sorts of other things. It was going to be _awesome._

Mabel giggled and fired her grappling hook, swinging over the space between the trees. "Welcome home, Dippin' Dot."

* * *

Danny sat on his bed at the Mystery Shack and closed his eyes. He knew that he was missing something. There was something else that had happened the night that he couldn't remember. He _needed_ to remember.

 _"Put him down!"_

The Halfa winced and clutched at his head as a stab of pain went through his temples. There had been... Someone there. Two, actually. Maybe three.

A girl?

 _"Danny?! Danny, please! You have to snap out of it! I don't know what she did to you, but you have to snap out of it before anything else happens!"_

Danny let out a small scream of pain as he was suddenly dragged back down into the memory.

 _Someone pressed their hands against his throat. "Shut up, you little bitch! Or I'll make you."_

 _"Get away from him!"_

 _A loud crackle and a noise like ripping cardboard sounded through the air, and then the agent was brutally thrown against the wall. Wire-thin light green thorny vines spread across their body, each one humming with electricity._

 _"See?" A male voice said confidently. "I told you that it would work."_

 _"Shut up, Tuck," an all-too-familiar female voice hissed. "Danny, can you see me?"_

 _There was a flash of green and black that coiled across his vision. No, that wasn't right. That should be purple. There should be purple..._

 _Two more people ran into the room, and then the yellow-orange that should be green and the green that should have been purple were both gone._

Danny fell from the bed and onto the floor, coughing and spluttering. There had been people there that he knew, that he trusted, that he cared about.

 _"Danny, take the chance and run. You have to get out of here, now!" Sam's purple eyes were wide with fear, but still shining with determination._

 _"Yeah, dude. We'll be fine. Just go!" Tucker agreed vehemently._

 _They both seemed to be ignoring the gun barrels pressed against their heads._

 _"No!" Danny protested, aiming a large neon green ectoblast at the ring of agents that surrounded him. "I won't leave you two!"_

 _"You have to," they both said in unison._

 _"But then you'll both..." Danny trailed off. He couldn't finish the thought or the sentence._

 _"Danny." Sam whispered. "Take care of yourself. Out there. I-"_

 _There were twin bangs, and then they were gone._

"Danny, it's okay. I promise that whatever you're seeing, it's not real."

The bodies and the bright red blood splashed across the floor against bright white suits were gone and instead Ford was there.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

Danny shook his head and tried to catch his breath.

"They-they were there," he panted. "I forgot but they were there."

"Who was there?"

"My friends." Danny looked up and met Ford's brown eyes with his blue ones-now flashing green. "Sam and Tucker. They were the ones who got rid of the agent who stabbed me."

Ford frowned. "Are you sure? If they were there than they would have to be..."

"Ghosts," Danny finished. "They would have to be ghosts."

* * *

Mabel laughed and twirled, momentarily forgetting all that she had been through in the presence of the spring sunshine. Dipper was reading the second journal near the space where a window pane still needed to be installed. Wendy was dancing with Mabel.

The comforting sounds of the season were interrupted by a large _boom_ and a scream of surprise.

"What was that?!" Dipper yelped, falling over.

"Don't know," Wendy replied, pulling out her ax from her belt. "But let's find out."

The three shimmied down the tree and ran off into the forest towards the source of the sound. What they found was... Not what they were expecting.

A girl with a white glow surrounding her entire body, a familiar symbol adorning the two piece black and white hazmat suit that she wore, white hair pulled back into a ponytail, and neon green eyes was trapped in an electric blue net, struggling and cursing. She looked to be around thirteen or fourteen years old.

A familiar metal ghost was floating above her, waving a white blade. "At last!" He shouted. "I have captured my prey!"

Wendy sighed and launched her ghost-proof ax at Skulker. "What are you doing now, Ghost Zone's worst hunter?"

The ax buried itself in the metal plate in Skulker's armor that he used as a chest. The ghost yelped in surprise (yes, _yelped._ Like a wounded dog) and tried to fire a bullet at her. Unfortunately for the ghost hunter, Dipper had already pulled out a witch bottle and pointed it at him.

He was immediately sucked inside in a column of white.

Mabel helped the girl out of the white net, looking at it in disgust. "Hi. I'm Mabel. And I'm guessing that you're Danielle Phantom?"


	21. Recovery (Part Two)

**FanficFan920:** Yay! Hopefully things will stay interesting.

 **EclipseWolf583:** She knows him because Danny had told them about her. It's pretty important. And that was on purpose!

 **The Keeper of Worlds:** The meaning of the word blunt is unknown to Mabel. There is only glitter.

 **ShinyMudkipGal:** You're welcome! I saw your username on YouTube... Jaffarchfiend is awesome. Was that you? I hope it was you. This is getting creepy, so, you're welcome again.

 **Guest (1):** Here is an update!

 **Guest (2):** Really? I thought it wasn't as bad as some before, but I guess...

 **havinfun828:** Here is more bruh.

 **Mimi1012:** Read my story Burning Brands and Rose Thorns. I think you'll really like it. And it should answer your questions. :)

 **EmPro8:** Ta-da! More!

 **There is far less angst in this chapter than I was originally intending. It's mostly just tooth-rotting fluff. Not quite cotton candy level, but still. _Very_ little angst.**

* * *

In a flash, the girl-Dani-had pulled away from the three and was aiming an ectoblast at Mabel's leg. If they tried to attack her, she could make sure that at least one of them wouldn't be able to follow her, but the wound wouldn't be fatal.

She narrowed her glowing green eyes at them. "How do you know my name?"

"Whoa, whoa!" Mabel held up her hands in the universal sign of surrender. "We're not bad guys! We're friends with Danny-er, Danny with a 'y.' He told us about you."

"You're Danny's friends?" Dani asked suspiciously. "Prove it."

"Uh," Dipper looked at Wendy in confusion. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"Tell me something about him. That you would only know by actually sitting down and talking to him."

Wendy half shrugged. "Okay, I guess. He wants to be an astronaut, he has a sort-of pet dog named Cujo, his nemesis is Vlad Masters/Plasmius, his best friends were named Sam and Tucker, and he hates toast. Good enough for you?"

Dani's eyes flicked between the three before her ectoblast powered down back into her palm. "I guess..." Then her eyes widened. "But if you're Danny's friends, does that mean that you know where he is?"

The Halfa sounded incredibly hopeful, and Mabel wondered how long she had been searching for him.

"Yeah, we do," Dipper assured her. "He's safe. We... We can take you to him if you want."

Dani's face lit up. "Really?"

"Yup." Mabel grinned and wrapped one of her arms around the ghost girl's shoulders, giving her a small side hug. Dani practically jumped out of her skin. "I'm sure that he'll be really happy to see you."

She wasn't lying-Dani was basically Danny's only living blood family that _wasn't_ arguably insane. And if the clone had been looking for her "cousin" for this long, surely he had wanted to as well?

Mabel suddenly felt a small wave of guilt roll over her as she realized that they had never even offered to help the ghost boy look for Dani.

Dipper coughed softly into his fist. "Er, Dani? If you're going to come with us, you should either go invisible or change back to your human form. We don't want to give any tourists a heart attack."

The female halfa looked at him for a long moment like she was deciding whether of not she could trust them before letting the bright white ring of light encircle her waist.

Dani's human form was small, only a little bit taller than Mabel (who was still the alpha twin). Her now black hair was still pulled back into a ponytail, and her once-green eyes were the same blue that Danny's were. There was a red beanie perched on her head, and it was surprisingly clean, unlike the tattered blue hoodie she was wearing. A pair of jeans completed the look, and Dani tilted her head at the twins and Wendy.

"Now take me to Danny."

* * *

In the weeks after he and Mabel were taken by the Guys in White, Danny's nightmares spiked in frequency and realism. It was only to be expected, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with the fact that on any given night Danny might make it halfway across the forest before he realized that he was safe.

Mabel had them too, although Dipper was usually the one to calm her down seeing as they were still sleeping in the same room. The male twin refused to leave his sister's side for any longer than he had to-especially at night, when bad dreams often kept both of them awake.

For Danny, the job usually fell to Ford or Wendy.

Whenever Danny left the Shack, he was always watched out for. Wendy had a small group of pixies that always knew generally where he was, and there was still that tracker bracelet on his wrist.

They weren't going to risk losing him again.

Currently, Danny was reading. Any of the kids at his old school who knew about his grades would be utterly shocked, at least until they saw that the book he was reading was actually about ghosts and how they were related-or, more accurately, how they were _unrelated-_ to monsters.

That was when Mabel marched into the room with a satisfied grin on her face.

"Danny, can you come to the front for a minute?" She asked, although it was more the kind of question that you said to be polite and weren't really expecting an answer other than "yes."

The ghost boy nodded and set his book aside, folding down the corner of the page so he could find it later. He stood up from the chair and winced as the bandaged wound on his chest painfully protested the movement.

"What's in the front?" He asked the smaller teenager. "Another one of your monster sweaters?"

"No, that's not going to be done for another few days," Mabel said, sounding slightly disappointed. Then she brightened. "Actually, someone's here to see you."

Danny tensed and stopped walking. "A-are they-"

"Naw, they're fine," Mabel insisted. Her chocolate brown eyes darkened as a shadow passed over her face. "If they ever came back, you would be the first to know. Promise."

She crossed her heart and kept walking, pushing open the door that still read "Employees Only" on it.

In the front, in the room that used to be the giftshop, was someone that Danny hadn't seen in far to long.

Of course, he didn't get to stare for too long before they let out a small cry of delight and pounced on him, straddling his chest and making his eyes go blurry with the pain. But he was too happy to care, even though he knew that he probably would later.

Danielle wrapped her blue hoodie-clad arms around him and poked his cheek like she wanted to make sure that he was solid.

The only other good half ghost in the world laughed from her place on top of him.

"You're real!"

"Yeah," Danny laughed. "Yeah, I am."

Later, he could explain things to her with help from the twins, Wendy, and Ford. But right now, he just needed to spend some time with his clone.

Right now, he needed someone who could _understand._


	22. Recovery (Part Three)

**I'M SO SORRY LIFE GOT IN THE WAY AGAIN~**

 **To everybody who reviewed on 'Cadaver Resergens' (crap did I spell that right?) telling me that it was creepy, it's supposed to be weird. I was sleep-deprived when I wrote it, sue me.**

 **Review time! Yay!**

 **The Keeper of Worlds:** I agree, but it might not come for a little while. I have so much stuff to write-plus (ugh) homework-that it's hard for me to actually make goals for these stories. But, yes, that is one of them.

 **ShinyMudkipGal:** Yessss clone fluff.

 **EmPro8:** UPDATE!

 **EclipseHeart285:** I know! Took me awhile to decide, and the people on Wattpad are probably super confused, but still! And I might use your idea-maybe not with Dipper, but I think Wendy would be a nice fit for the role...

 **Guest (1):** No, it's not complete, but I _will_ try to update more often. I had to actually set a notification on my phone that used some pretty... _strong language_ to get myself to update!

 **Mimi1012:** Well, everybody dies. Even Halfas. But no, Sam's just waiting for them to meet again. She understands that they can't be together-I'm actually planning out a _very_ fun and interesting scene between her and Mabel in the future.

 **Guest (2):** Ta-da!

 **I can't wait for Weirdrmageddon Part Three, even if it does mean saying goodbye to some close (if fictional) friends.**

 **Also, small side note that's a bit off topic, does anybody here ship Bluepulse or at the very least watch Young Justice? 'Cause I do both and I need more friends.**

 **Fluffy chapter, with a small side dish of gore. Tread with caution.**

 **(Basically, I'm gonna murder somebody.)**

* * *

Two things that Ford did not expect when he climbed out of the basement to see what all the commotion was: a girl who looked like a tiny version of Danny perched on top of him (which couldn't be good for his injuries), and Mabel and Dipper plastered head to toe in mud and leaves.

That one, at least, was a little bit more normal.

The girl clambered off of the ghost boy and narrowed her crystal blue eyes at Ford suspiciously. "Who are you?"

"That's our Grunkle Ford," Mabel said proudly. "It's short for Great-Uncle. Granule Ford, this is Dani. She's Danny's clone-cousin."

Even though he knew that it was impolite, Ford couldn't help the small rush of excitement that he felt at the prospect of a clone. Yes, there was that enchanted copier in Stan's old office, but those clones melted on contact with water according to Dipper and Mabel. This was a clone that may have been unstable at one point in time, but certainly wasn't now.

Then he realized how over analytical and scientific he sounded and composed himself inwardly.

He held out a hand, silently hoping at the back of his mind that she either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care about his peculiar six fingers. "Nice to meet you, Dani."

One of Ford's first lessons (given to him by an overexcited Mabel) was not to say "greetings" anymore when he introduced himself to new people.

The girl didn't say anything and shook his hand, giving his fingers a small confused glance but nothing more. Ford assumed that she had seen weirder than someone who was polydactyl on both hands.

Danny set a hand on Dani's shoulder (it was going to be really fun trying to differentiate them, wasn't it? Even worse than Stanford and Stanley before they realized that they didn't have to call both of them "Stan") and mumbled something in her ear that made her relax slightly and stop thinking about how hard it would be to escape from here along with Danny.

Mabel bounced up, tossing mud everywhere as she waved her arms wildly. "Dani, do you wanna come into town with us? I know that you just got here and all, and you probably want to spend time with Danny, but you'll need new clothes and I need to go shopping anyway."

At the word "shopping," Wendy and Dipper paled and took a step backwards. Ford didn't, seeing as how he usually had nothing to worry about, and Dani didn't know what the horrible thing was about going shopping with Mabel. Danny didn't take a step back either-Mabel had him wrapped around her little finger, but she didn't usually abuse her power over him. _Usually_.

Dani looked her up and down warily. "Um, okay, I guess... Can Danny come with us?"

Mabel beamed, flashing newly-straightened pearly white teeth at the female half ghost. "Sure! The more the merrier!"

Dipper and Wendy took that convenient moment to escape behind Ford and into the house.

* * *

Agent Z snarled angrily and fired one of his ectoguns at a filing cabinet. It scorched a hole right through, incinerating several rather important papers that he would have his underlings replace later as punishment.

Punishment for letting the Halfa escape.

 _ **"Well well well well well well well well,"**_ someone said, and Agent Z recognised Bill's voice from before. _**"It looks like you failed to bring me what I asked for."**_

"Leave," Agent Z spat. "I don't have time for you. I have to find our rogue experiment."

 _ **"I'm afraid that you won't be doing that, Agent Z,"**_ Cipher's echoing voice was a dangerous purr. _**"Because you failed me. And I don't tolerate failure."**_

Horrifying, _agonizing_ pain swept through his body, and Agent Z's legs crumpled beneath him and carried him down to the floor. He gasped in pain. "What are you doing to me?!"

 _ **"Just because you failed doesn't mean that I can't have some fun before you succumb,"**_ Cipher said cheerfully. _**"Let's see how fast I can pull out your intestines!"**_

About a floor below him, the agent's secretary heard the piercing screaming that echoed down from upstairs. She immediately called for assistance, but by the time the team got there it had stopped.

The team of agents that had responded to the call found no whole body of their commander.

Just bloody pieces here, a stray eyeball there, a chunk of intestine stuck to the ceiling. Every surface was coated in thick red blood, and some of the agents marvelled at how much was in a human body.

At the center of the room, painted in entrails, were two words:

 _YOU FAILED._

* * *

Dani walked alongside Mabel as she dragged the two Halfas to the mall. Danny had insisted on coming, and personally Dani didn't mind.

She didn't know what to think of the people that she had met.

Ford was... Okay. Wendy seemed nice enough, if a bit intimidating.

But it was the younger twins that really caught her attention.

There was something that just _worked_ with them. They were a dynamic duo, an unbreakable pair. But from what the ghost girl had seen, they were still very different from each other.

Smart and outgoing, sweet and intelligent, bright and kind, nerdy and bubbly. They seemed to fit the stereotype of twins being opposites.

But what was most remarkable was that Danny trusted them.

The twins and Wendy had told her about what had happened. Nothing specific, just that it had been bad.

 _Very_ bad.

But he was so at ease with these people. He may be jumping at every out of place sound outside of that weird house, but he clearly wasn't looking for attack from Mabel.

In fact, she was easily able to calm him down with a few well-places words, a small nudge with her shoulder, or simply by distracting him.

She even managed to drag Dani into the (mostly one-sided) conversation, asking her opinion on everything from magic to colors to clothing styles.

Yes, Mabel Pines was an engima, alright.

But Dani liked her all the same.

* * *

"So, she's in Oregon?" A voice mused. "Well, let's see how fast we can catch up. Skulker?"

"Yes?" A mechanical voice replied.

"I've found our prey."


	23. Recovery (Part Four)

**Usually this would be the place where I respond to all of your reviews, but instead I'm just going to go straight to the chapter. You guys deserve it for putting up with my bullshit and complete lack of a proper updating schedule. The only excuse that I can properly offer is that I recently had minor surgery, and my life has been incredibly hectic lately. Fanfiction also wasn't letting me make new things in the doc manager, which totally sucks, but that seems to be working again. Did anybody else have that problem?**

 **Anyways, without any further ado, the next chapter!**

* * *

Dani sat on the edge of the couch, wearing a newer set of clothes similar to what she had been wearing before. The only difference was that these ones actually fit, and were far cleaner than her old ones.

"Are you _sure_ that it's okay if I sleep down here?" The ghost girl asked her "cousin" and his friend.

Mabel nodded, fluffing up a pillow. "Yep. Unless you want to sleep up in the attic with us, there's no other room with a bed or a couch in it that you can sleep in. I mean, there's the couch outside, but this is better."

"Okay, but only if you're positive." Dani watched as Mabel did something complicated with a blanket to fold it. Danny seemed to be attempting something similar, with less successful results.

Mabel leaned back a bit on her heels to admire her blanket and sheet handiwork. "There! That should do it. We have an extra toothbrush if you need it."

Dani nodded. It had been _way_ too long since she last brushed her teeth, and she could feel a gross film growling over her teeth with her tongue. "Yes, please."

Mabel smiled and grabbed her hand, pulling her up the stairs and leaving Danny behind with a small shout of, "Go to sleep!"

The thirteen year old girl knocked on the bathroom door. "Dippingsauce? You almost done in there?"

Dipper pushed the door open from the inside. "Yes, actually."

He squeezed past them and slipped into the attic room. Dani frowned slightly down the hall after him before she noticed that there was a door not far from the one that led to the place where the twins said that they slept.

"What's in that room?" She asked, pointing to the door.

Mabel looked at it, her smile fading as a shadow crossed her face. "Nothing. Just-just a storage closet."

Dani immediately noticed that she was lying, but didn't say anything.

* * *

Dani sat bolt upright on her makeshift bed as a scream ripped through the house.

She stayed still for a moment and listened, before springing out of the chair/bed when it came again.

It sounded like someone was being murdered.

It sounded like... _Danny._

Dani let the transformation happen, bright white ring encircling her waist and inverting the colors of her hair and eyes. Her feet lifted off of the floor, and the cold trickle of intangibility sank through her.

She floated up through the floor silently so as not to alarm whatever was attacking-there!

Wait a minute. Nothing was attacking Danny, although her sort-of cousin was thrashing and crying out on the bed, limbs tangled in the sheets.

A nightmare.

Just as Dani was alighting on the ground so that she could try to wake him up, the door opened.

The man from before, the one who went down behind the vending machine-Ford, that's right, his name was Ford-stood there, still wearing his trech coat.

As the Halfa watched, he started to loudly call Danny's name along with some other things, reassurances that he was okay, that he had escaped, that nobody could hurt him now.

But he didn't actually physically touch the ghost boy at all, and Dani soon saw why.

Danny shot awake with a yell, eyes and palms glowing with neon green energy. He twisted frantically, trying to escape from someone invisible to everyone but him.

 _That_ was when Ford moved, carefully setting his hands on his shoulders and murmuring quietly to Danny.

"You're okay," he said softly, like he was talking to an injured animal that wasn't used to human contact. "You'll be alright. They aren't here. They can't get you now. It's safe here. Nothing can get through the wards without permission. It'll be okay, Danny. I promise, you'll be alright."

Dani crept forward hesitantly, moving even slower when Danny's head snapped around to look at her. "It's just me," she said, still unused to the idea that he wouldn't recognize her. "I came up when I heard the shouting."

Ford nodded to her. "Come closer, it will probably help."

The ghost girl obeyed, gently patting Danny's hand.

"Hey," she began. "Um, are you okay? I didn't mean to sca-startle you. I just thought that you were in trouble, 'cause I heard some screaming..."

She trailed off uncertainly. Danny looked her up and down with green-speckled blue eyes.

"Dani?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Can I see your eyes?"

The question caught the female Halfa off-guard, and she blinked slowly before looking over at Ford in confusion.

"Uh... Okay," she agreed at the man's nod of approval.

Danny cupped her cheeks and tilted her face, staring deep into her glowing green irises in a way that was, quite frankly, really weird and creepy. After about thirty seconds, he let go-and immediately crushed her ribs in a poweful hug.

"You're real," he mumbled into her hair. "I thought that you weren't real, but you _are."_

"Er, yep," Dani agreed awkwardly, squirming a bit. "I'm real."

"And you're not in any danger of destabilization or dissolving into goop or anything like that anymore, right?" Danny asked.

His clone wondered if he had genuinely forgotten the answers to all of these questions. "No, I won't destabilize. Promise. You made sure of that."

"What about Vlad? Did he follow you?"

Dani stiffened. "I-I don't know," she admitted. "But I don't think so. Unless..."

 _Unless he sent Skulker. Unless he's watching us right now. Unless he hasn't quite given up on having you as his son. Unless he still wants to destroy me._

Ford gave her the Look that usually only an adult can give, the kind that says You're Going To Tell Me What Is Going On Right Now. The only person that had ever given her that look before and not meant it in a bad way was Danny, and that had been when he found her reading on his bed.

It put Dani on the defensive.

"He followed you?" Danny's grip on the front of her two-piece hazmat suit (what was the purpose of that, anyways?) tightened before going slack.

That was when Dani noticed the bandages peeking out from under his shirt. Instinctively, she reached out to touch them, only for her genetic (almost) identical to flinch back and move his arms to cover them-to protect them.

"What happened?" Dani breathed.

Danny twisted his upper body around, and Dani noticed just how glazed over and unfocused his eyes were. "Is Vlad coming? I can't let him-!"

"No," Ford said calmly, although it was clearly a mask. "No, he isn't. You're safe here, and so are the twins. So is Dani. If something tries to get through the wards around the house without me knowing about it somehow, Dipper or Mabel will be able to take care of it."

Dani pulled back and leaned against the wall.

 _Vlad was coming, wasn't he? She'd doomed them both._


	24. Goddess of Destruction (Part One)

**ShinyMudkipGal:** Mwahaha.

 **The Keeper of Worlds:** Oh god, she totally would adopt her. That gives me so many ideas...

 **hetalia43v3r:** *screams back like a bansidhe*

 **ImDatFrootloop:** More is here!

 **The doctor:** Yes, yes they are!

 **EmPro8:** It's going to be so much fun to see the fire and chaos while the screams of the innocent ring in our ears. *offers bag* Want some popcorn?

 **EclipseHeart185:** 1\. Yep! 2. Thank you! I always struggle with that part of writing, which is weird because I'm actually writing a Parapines love story (there's dragons! It's awesome!) on Ao3. So, thanks! I try to make stuff realistic (well, as realistic as it can be) and that includes relationships, so... Thanks! 3. Oooh, true. I might use that-not majorly or anything, but towards the end. 4. Hahaha!

 **This is the last chapter that I have published on Wattpad, so bear with me and my possible small break as I write some more so that I can spam you guys.**

* * *

Mabel Pines was not patient. At all.

Dipper was fully aware of this, but it didn't make her complaining any easier to bear.

"Ugh," his sister groaned theatrically, flopping backwards onto her bed in the attic. "This is taking forever!"

Dipper rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Mabes. It's only been, like, ten minutes. Maybe twelve at the most. I think you'll survive."

"But what if something happens?" The girl pointed out. "I mean, mom and dad don't exactly know about all of the crazy magic stuff that happens here, just because _someone_ didn't want to tell them."

He sighed. "Mabel, it'll be fine. I'm honestly more worried about what they're going to say when they meet Danny, Wendy, Dani-with-an-i, and Ford, to be honest."

Mabel smiled at the ceiling. "I wanna take pictures of their faces for blackmail purposes."

That was when the head popped up through the floor.

For most people, that would at the very least cause some panicked screaming and possibly a bit of wild flailing, but when you're kinda-sorta living with two half ghosts, you get pretty used to weird stuff happening.

"Do you guys know where Wendy is?" Dani asked, blowing some stray strands of white hair that had come loose from her ponytail out of her face. "She promised me that she'd introduce me to some dragons today."

"I think she's with Tambry and Robbie in the cemetery," Mabel replied. "But she might be trying to keep her dad from breaking their house. Again."

Dani sighed and floated the rest of the way through the floor, sitting cross-legged about a foot off of the wooden attic floor. "So I guess I have to wait for her to come back before I can leave?"

"Yeah, sorry about that," Dipper said apologetically. "The wards would still let you back in, though, so if you really wanted to you could leave. Although I don't think that the dragons would trust you if you came in smelling like death and without anybody to vouch for you."

Mabel elbowed him lightly as she sat up on her bed, pulling her purple fleece blanket up around and over her shoulders. "Well, do you want to meet _my_ friends? They're pretty cool, and I've already told you about Candy and Grenda."

"Sure. Are Danny and Dipper coming?" The Halfa asked.

"I am-"

"Nope," Mabel cut across her brother. "They aren't. Just us gals."

Dipper made an indignant squawking sound. "Mabel-!"

"We'll be _fine,_ Dipper," Mabel sighed, gently shoving her brother. "We'll just be going into town. You _know_ that Candy and Grenda can protect us just fine, and we _can_ take care of ourselves. Besides, Pacifica will be there. If people want to kidnap anybody, they'll kidnap her. And then we can fight them off, and we'll win, and everything will be fine."

Dipper's brown eyes flitted back and forth between Dani, who was trying her best to look indifferent (it wasn't really working), and Mabel, who was delivering an excellent pair of puppy dog eyes-the kind that he had never been able to resist.

The teenager groaned. "Fine. I can't stop you anyways."

His twin cheered and grabbed Dani's hand, startling the ghost girl. "Woohoo! Come on, Dani, let's go!"

She jumped off of the bed and took of, running down the hallway while dragging Dani along behind her. Dipper sighed and pulled out a book, leather with a pine tree symbol stamped into the front and the number '4' written in the middle.

He had some work to get done.

* * *

Mabel rocked back and forth on her heels, glancing back and forth before she ran across the street with Dani behind her. Or in front of her. It was hard to tell because she was invisible.

Anyways, Dani was somewhere around her, actually hovering a couple of feet above Mabel's head. The teenage girl was still in her ghostly alter-ego, white hair once again pulled back into its usual ponytail. Her two-piece hazmat suit had been forgone, to be replaced by a black sweater with her symbol on it, curtosy of Mabel's knitting needles.

The reason for the outfit change was unknown to everybody except for Dani herself.

Mabel stopped in front of the tiny craft store that resided in between the bowling alley and the pet shop, waving in Dani's general direction. "I'll just be a second, okay? I need more yarn."

She pushed the door open, smiling happily at the familiar bell that _dinged_ cheerfully as it swung inwards. "Hi, Mrs. Shelton!"

The woman who owned the store (and lived beside it) looked up from the desk at the thirteen year old. "Hello, Mabel. How much do you think you're getting today?"

For most customers, the business owner asked if she could help them to find anything. But after Mabel stopped by at least once a week all summer long, spending what little money that her stingy great-uncle paid her, she soon realized that the girl could find anything that she wanted and more within only five minutes. And since she always bought something, Mrs. Shelton changed her usual greeting.

"Just a little bit of yarn," Mabel called, heading straight to that section. "I almost ran out over the weekend!"

Mrs. Shelton found that hard to believe. Mabel was her most loyal customer other than that Tad Strange fellow, and he only ever bought grey yarn and hot glue. She didn't know if he ever did anything with it, but he was the most normal person in this town.

He probably just gave to old ladies like Meredith and her wife Sally.

He was very normal, after all.

As Mabel browsed through Mrs. Shelton's wide selection of products, the bell for the door rang again. The woman looked over with a pleasant smile on her face. "Hello, can I help you find anything today?"

The man standing just inside of her store shook his head. "No, thank you. I think that I'll be just fine on my own."

Mabel pulled out a large skein of hot pink yarn and tucked it underneath her arm. The man walked slowly over, standing in a place where he was just out of sight to the front desk. Mrs. Shelton was sure, however, that he would be able to find anything that he needed with Mabel's expert assistance.

She missed their conversation.

As Mabel tugged out a ball of royal blue yarn, noticed that the man who had walked into the store was standing beside her. He was probably a tourist, because she had never seen them around town before. Which meant that she should do her best to make them feel welcome.

"Hi there!" She greeted. "I'm Mabel. What's your name?"

The man didn't answer, instead appraising her with cold blue-grey eyes. Mabel blinked and bit her lip. "Uh, okay. If you don't want to talk, that's fine too."

The man reached out and set his hand on Mabel's shoulder, making the young teenager automatically rest her hand on the stomach of her sweater-or, more accurately, on the grappling hook concealed beneath it.

"My dear girl, I apologize," he said, smiling like a snake. "I was just... Lost in my thoughts for a moment. My name is Vlad Masters, and I'm looking for my son."


End file.
